Books Books
Category: Ebooks, Individual Collections, Poetry
Number of pages: 72
ISBN: 9781781726563
Publication date: October 6, 2022
Price: £9.99
Category: Ebooks, Individual Collections, Poetry
Number of pages: 72
ISBN: 9781781726570
Publication date: October 6, 2022
Price: £7.99
Out of stock
Read Rhiannon’s poem ‘7th Nerve’ as Guardian Poem of the Week
Goliat is the long-awaited follow-up to Hooson’s debut collection The Other City. The title poem takes us to the Barents Sea and the dark waters of a Russian oil field named Goliat – a whale, a giant, a monster – to the ‘singular infinities of the wintering sea’, where something is starting to sing.
Nature and climate crisis are forever present in the consciousness of these poems, as in ‘Doggerland’, a lament for the nearing extinction of the white fronted goose, or in ‘Horse Skull Crown’, a folk dance for the evening of the world.
The pinnacle of the collection is the sequence ‘Full Moon on Fish Street’ which introduces an invented artist, known only as Aubrey, and details the erotic dynamic between her and her muse Elizabeth Kidd, which unfolds across poems and against the vibrantly drawn backdrop of St Ives.
Art and artists populate the pages of Goliat, as well as a deep sense of place and history, united in the the series ‘Dirtwife’, inspired by the long history of pigments and dyestuffs.
This intelligent, sensuous second collection tackles the precariousness of climate emergency and of existing in a human body, along with poems exploring the monstrous and the more-than-human, and the intimate histories of women and their work.
Rhiannon Hooson
Dr. Rhiannon Hooson is a Welsh poet and author. She has won major awards for her work, including an Eric Gregory award from the Society of Authors, and performed at literature festivals and venues across Europe and the UK, including London, Milan and the Hay festival.
Her work has been featured in the Guardian, Magma, and Poetry Wales among others. Her first full length collection, The Other City, was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award, and was described by the judges as “Stunning… at a pitch of achievement many of us will not reach across a career.”
She is an experienced workshop leader and creative mentor, with five years experience of teaching Creative Writing at a university level, and fourteen years experience of creative mentoring and leading workshops. In 2018 she became the poetry editor for Creative Countryside magazine.
She now lives in the Welsh Marches after time spent living and working in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.,
Her second collection Goliat was published by Seren in 2022.
“The opening poems in this fine and deeply engaging collection ooze imagination… Hooson is unflinching in her bold imaginings… Each of the poems has yearning, a piercing atmosphere and the quiver of the sea… the whole collection is a masterclass in poetic language and form; it represents carefully researched themes and the employment of inventive devices to create a truly magical, luminous book.”
The London Grip
“…an extremely talented poet who has something to say to us all’
Nation.Cymru
“Named after a Russian oilfield, Goliat takes things which are modern – streets, gardens, coffee houses, spaceships – and renders them, generally, in such a painterly way that all are rendered rich, resonant, and redolent of a time when tapestries hung on the wall and fires were the only source of heating… there’s a richness in these poems that seems not just timeless but to traverse – and to originate from – another century… Deep inks, a clever mind, and a wide imagination – recommended.”
Mab Jones, Buzz Magazine
“Across the breadth of these poems, one sees both the mundane and the fantastic, drawn out and examined with equal care. Creating an exploratory body of work that is incredibly diverse in both its lyrical and thematic reflections.”
DURA
”Hooson goes out in her wellies and faces down old and new monsters. Her wise and steady gaze takes in the loss of old certainties, both personal and political, the loss of the ‘white fronted goose’ and of love and innocence. Achingly beautiful, fine and twisty poems– a magical alchemy of the ancient and modern worlds.”
Deborah Alma
“Hooson’s poetry is a rich and assured gift—complex truths are revealed in language that is precise and luminous. One cannot but admire her craft: the sensuous detail and passionate abstraction. These are meditations steeped in profundity. They call on the reader to dare and leap with her wonderments and ultimately to share and celebrate her explorations. ‘ Watchfulness’ doesn’t get better than this.”
Menna Elfyn
