Agog

by Pete Marshall

Pete Marshall s poetry is wry, witty and playful, yet always pushing at the boundaries of formal and free verse. Stylistically fresh and engaging, the poems often come accompanied by images and found material, only enhancing their literary and artistic impact, and reflecting a deep rootedness in the landscape and mythology of North Wales. This passion for place comes through in densely layered verse, not averse to social and cultural commentary, often with a critical edge. In its combination of the lyrical and the colloquial, of formal innovation and an outward-looking, thought-Provoking narrative, AGOG brings together a very original perspective on the valleys of home.

78 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2011

About the author

Pete Marshall was born in Liverpool in 1958. He has worked at many occupations, from a soldier to a social worker. His writing appears regularly in literary magazines and his first collection was published by the Frogmore Press in 1989. His second collection, In Loco Parentis, explores child abuse and children in care was and his third collection, The Vale, was written during a six months writer’s sabbatical in the Vale of Glamorgan. His third collection AGOG was published by Cinnamon Press. Pete is married with three children and lives on a traditional Welsh smallholding in the Conwy Valley.

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title of this poetry collection is a play on words; agog means rapt with attention but there is also a Gog - the name for someone who comes from North Wales in the same way as Taff is often applied to those from South Wales. These poems are redolent of North Wales but from the point of view of what it is really like to live there. So yes there are mountains but also

...see beautiful Gwenno's long black jackdaw hair and dark eyes deep as the dog lakes on Cnicht; see Gwenno's pale Snowdon lily skin shining white as death; see her full lips painted red as a dragon's tongue; see Gwenno in the square in Llanrwst tottering on heels higher than the mountain she lives on...

So the poems are playful as well as serious and come in a variety of voices Welsh and English. Marshall uses different techniques to good effect; found poetry and concrete poetry which I can't reproduce in this review so I recommend you read the book for yourself.