Sound Archive

Nerys Williams deftly employs modernist techniques in her innovative new collection of poems, Sound Archives. The reader is enticed by hints and clues, by tone and rhythm, by fragment and exclamation through themes that run from a painting by Gwen John, to 'Conversations with Cocteau', from 'Methane Sonata' to 'Global Warriors'. Often a poem will evolve as a description of a landscape or setting such as Caldy Island, or 'Cater's Starstruck Diner, L.A.' or even as an argument as in 'The Pedagogical poet'. With her philosophical and critical cast of mind these poems are as much about perceptions and values as they are about their subjects, they build sounds-scapes of imagery, veering away from straight-forward narrative. They, as one poem says, 'murder the discursive', in order to eschew cliche. She also uses humour and satire to subvert our expectations of say, a piece ostensibly about heartbreak. She often uses the imperative to challenge our compliance as in 'How to MakeThings Disappear'. Williams confronts our preconceptions about what it might mean to be a woman writing against the background of two formidable traditions: that of Welsh-speaking Wales and of English literature. A thoughtful, subtle and fascinating first collection.