Edging the City: A Journey Round The Border of Cardiff

by Peter Finch

Cardiff-lover Peter Finch spent the first lockdown walking the edge of the city in which he was confined by the UK government restrictions. He thought he knew Cardiff, but it was a revelation. Here are new discoveries about the Welsh capital’ s places and history, drawn from Finch’ s walks, knowledge and his personal history, and an exploration of the nature of borders.

Genres: History

280 pages, Paperback

Published November 10, 2022

About the author

Peter Finch is a full-time poet, critic, author and literary entrepreneur living in Cardiff, Wales. Until June 2011 he was Chief Executive of Literature Wales (formerly Academi), the Welsh National Literature Development Agency. As a writer he works in both traditional and experimental forms. He is best known for his declamatory poetry readings, his creative work based on his native city of Cardiff, his editing of Seren's Real series, and his knowledge of the UK poetry publishing scene.

Reviews

[Michael Bawden · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of those books that on paper should be right up my street, but in the end I really didn't enjoy it.

Finch is a good writer and the book is at its strongest when it's charting the city's history, but the clarity of this work is muddied by its frequent personal detours and anecdotes about the history of the Welsh poetry scene. Which as occasional colour could be interesting but after a while borders on hagiography.

The work gets weaker as it covers modern developments - despite having various opinions on town planning it's clear Finch doesn't really have a grasp of it. Variously raising his eyebrow at things he clearly considers boondoggles but lamenting that the monorail never made it off the test track (!).

I also got the sense of a snobbishness towards people in new build and council estates throughout which left a particularly bad taste in the mouth - but doubtless delivered wry smiles among civic society types, who this book is squarely aimed at.

I'm surprised I have to say this, but as other reviewers have noted this book is also littered with basic grammar and syntax errors that even one editorial proof read would've corrected. If you're paying £10 for a book, you'd hope the sentences you're reading weren't regularly missing entire words.

All in all, a shame really.

[otaku]

This is certainly an interesting book so far, and as a Cardiff resident and someone who dabbles in psychogeography, this is very much aimed at me. I wish someone had proof-read it before publication, though. It's absolutely full of errors.