Collected Poems: Lynette Roberts: Lynette Roberts

by Lynette Roberts, Patrick McGuinness (Editor)

The work of an original, haunting, and experimental modernist poet is made available again for the first time in 50 years in this volume. Lynette Roberts is principally a war poet, in that her two published collections take as their subject a woman's life in wartime. A late modernist, she works on two scales at the same time: the mythic and the domestic. As a Welsh writer, her best work stands alongside that of her near-contemporaries, David Jones, R.S. Thomas and Dylan Thomas. As a woman poet, her work bears comparison with that of both Mina Loy and Djuna Barnes.

Genres: Poetry

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1998

About the author

Lynette Roberts (1909-1995) was one of Wales' most significant wartime poets and essayists. She was born in Buenos Aires to Welsh parents and settled in Carmarthenshire in the early 1940s, when she also began publishing poetry and prose. Her work received praise from T.S. Eliot and Robert Graves. Well-acquainted with both Alun Lewis and Dylan Thomas, she wrote the majority of her poetry during World War II whilst living in Llanybri.

Reviews

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some argue that Welsh modernism didn’t exist, which could be explained by the fact that much of high modernist writing is concerned with the urban consciousness, and Wales cannot be said to have gone through the same levels of urbanisation as those modernist cities like London, Paris or Dublin. However, one only needs to look at one Lynette Roberts poem (or at other Welsh modernists like Emyr Humphreys, David Jones or Dorothy Edwards) to realise that this movement did in fact exist.

Lynette Roberts has a dual identity, having been born in Argentina but with family roots and much of her life spent in rural West Wales. This outsider status, this sense of unbelonging, creeps into her poems and her impressions of Welshness. Her experimentation with language, voice and sound, her use of fragmentation, and her fascination with myth and legend are all facets of her status as a modernist (not to mention the fact that TS Eliot was her editor). But what sets her work apart is a rootedness in the domestic and the everyday; there is a down-to-earth quality to her work, which always relates myth back to the real world. Highlights were ‘Gods with Stainless Ears’, ‘Earthbound’, ‘Lamentation’ and ‘Plasnewydd’.

[Tôpher Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning book, this overlooked poet deserves to be better known. I cannot praise this book enough, so rapturously engaging and seriously good!

[Comrade Doge · Rating 5 out of 5]

say what you want about the modernists, but they could write some fucking poetry

[Ido]

Read a couple of poems by Roberts and enjoyed them very much. Will be on the lookout for this book.

[Jude Brigley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not believe that I did not know these poems before. I really enjoyed them. I loved her imagery as in the poem [for alun Lewis?] in which she lists the things she would cook for him if he visited her again. I have a new poet to think on.

[toria (vikz writes)]

Heard of this poet during the BBC poetry series, really liked what I heard and had to order this book. I'm glad I did - really enjoying it.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a strange and wonderful poet! More later when I'm better acquainted with the work --but right now I can say I'm moved and astonished.