Kirjahaku

Of this collection the author explains in his Afterword, "This book is in six parts. The divisions are porous and the parts bleed into each other. The poems were written using a variety of procedures; from a daily journal, from logs of specific journeys, from following the progress of a road being built, from archaeological digs, from the experience of a body in space, from translation across time and place and through the use of particular forms. Some are located in specific places; most move between places and some remain in between. As I re-read these poems there may be too much landscape. Living in north Wales between the mountains and the sea that's hard to avoid. But I do seem to have tried to detail the way a local inter-relates with the global, how locales and locals can talk to each other and how speech and writing might jump from place to place and terminal to terminal."

This book draws out connections between ideas of space in cultural and social theory and developments in contemporary poetry. Studying the works of poets from the UK and USA we explore relationships between the texts, ideas of globalization and issues of nationality, identity, language and geography.

This tells the story of a group of regular travellers, in the eight years Coventry City were playing in the lower Tiers of English Football. It captures the magic of days out with members of the Coventry City London Supporters' Club following their beloved Coventry City home and away., The socialising with friends who share the same passion for football, drinking and eating together in great pubs, visiting football grounds and even enjoying the delights of travelling on our rail network These pleasures were lost during the Covid-19 pandemic, and they may never be enjoyed in quite the same way again.

We think of Voltaire as the archetypal figure of the enlightenment; in his own time he was also the most famous and controversial figure in Europe. This dazzling new biography celebrates his extraordinary life.Davidson tells the whole, rich story of Voltaire's life (1694-1778): his early imprisonment in the Bastille; exile in England and his mastery of English; an obsession with money, of which he made a huge amount; a scandalous love life; a long exile on the borders of Switzerland; his human-rights campaigns and his triumphant return to Paris to die there as celebrity extraordinaire. Throughout all of this, Voltaire's life was always informed by two things: a belief in the essential value of toleration in the face of fanaticism; and in the right of every man to think and say what he liked.It is rare to have such a vivid portrait of a great man.

Late December Back in '63 tells the story of an unforgettable day in top-flight English football - when 66 goals were netted in just ten fixtures on Boxing Day 1963. The author brings each match to life through archive reports and images, exploring how such a staggering tally of goals was scored. This was the age of attacking formations, just before the era of more defensive disciplines, but what other factors were at play? The book examines and tests the veracity of various myths that surround that extraordinary day. Along with club line-ups, match reports, programmes and images from the fixtures, Late December Back in '63 takes an in-depth look at the careers of the various characters who played their part. It also offers a snapshot of where the national sport stood less than 20 years after World War 2 and the socio-economic changes taking place in the 'Swinging Sixties'. You'll get a picture of the state of the game less than three years before the summer of 1966 and how our future World Cup heroes were doing in their careers.

The fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 has become the commemorative symbol of the French Revolution. But this violent and random act was unrepresentative of the real work of the early revolution, which was taking place ten miles west of Paris, in Versailles. There, the nobles, clergy and commoners of France had just declared themselves a republic, toppling a rotten system of aristocratic privilege and altering the course of history forever. The Revolution was led not by angry mobs, but by the best and brightest of France's growing bourgeoisie: young, educated, ambitious. Their aim was not to destroy, but to build a better state. In just three months they drew up a Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was to become the archetype of all subsequent Declarations worldwide, and they instituted a system of locally elected administration for France which still survives today. They were determined to create an entirely new system of government, based on rights, equality and the rule of law. In the first three years of the Revolution they went a long way toward doing so. Then came Robespierre, the Terror and unspeakable acts of barbarism. In a clear, dispassionate and fast-moving narrative, Ian Davidson shows how and why the Revolutionaries, in just five years, spiralled from the best of the Enlightenment to tyranny and the Terror. The book reminds us that the Revolution was both an inspiration of the finest principles of a new democracy and an awful warning of what can happen when idealism goes wrong.

This book is in five sections. 'Wear and Tear' contains poems about the birth of my son Gruffydd in 2009, a brother to Robert and Brendan they may not have expected, and the worlds he produced on his arrival. The poems in the 'Partly in Riga' section are from a few years earlier, and a result of a residency in Riga, Latvia as part of the 'Sealines' project. They try to talk about some of the difficulties of knowing and not knowing, of being there and immersed in the place and the culture, but not always understanding. 'Partly Local' tracks a number of journeys both within and outside north Wales, ranging from the Llyn Peninsula to Sussex and the Greek mainland, as well as journeys into the Welsh past through the poetry and landscapes of Dafydd ap Gwilym. The poems in 'Poor Relations' are an attempt to think consistently about contemporary politics at a time when, to me, that seemed to be impossible. They try to locate places of resistance and moments of compassion, however fleeting. The final section, 'The People Poems', takes forward the ideas in 'Poor relations' and explores a developing interest in the human figure, and a the changing and partial contexts produced by human activity. But they try to be about more than the figure, or the politicised human body; they try to be about people and the complexities of their histories, an inter-related present and their possible futures. I like people, even though they disturb me sometimes. (Ian Davidson)

These poems were written on the way to work, walking the two and a half miles from near Saltwell Park in Gateshead to Northumbria University in Newcastle. The journey took me through Gateshead's residential streets, its town centre and over the Tyne, often by the High Level Bridge. I'd try to write something in my head every day before I got to work, while still free of the numbing rush of its demands. Sometimes a whole poem would appear, at other times one or two words or lines would shift and repeat through seemingly endless variations, refusing to settle.

The poems in this selection range from recent poetry written in Ian Davidson's new home in Ireland (in 'Coming and Going') to work gathered from his collections with Shearsman and Spectacular Diseases, written when he lived in north Wales. This volume also makes available long out-of-print sequences with West House, Oystercatcher and Wild Honey, work that was published to some critical acclaim and was described at the time of its publication as 'some of the most exciting and innovative poetry currently being written in Wales'. Combining human and non-human concerns, the social and the environmental, the poems chart a growing interest in the ways the landscape and the moving body interact. They focus on events such as an archaeological dig off the west coast of Ynys Mon, on a walk around the Llyn peninsula and exploring the coast at Aberystwyth, but never lose sight of the gritty politics of language in those communities or the ways the frictions of mobility are part of the writing process. In a recent (2021) review in Poetry Fortnight Peter Riley spoke of the ways Ian Davidson has worked with concerns about correspondence and hidden threat for a long time, mainly driven by socio-political concern and cultivating an awkwardness of address, sometimes like a sustained and suppressed anger which distorts the language, defining "poetical" as a refusal of detailed explicit connection. Sean Colleti, again reviewing in 2021 in Second City, speaks of the ways 'Great poetry gets you outside of yourself as much as it brings you back in ... Davidson's pamphlet does just that.' Earlier reviews at the time of first publication of the work in this New and Selected Poems describes the work as 'some of the best political poetry this reader has encountered for a long time' (Chicago Review), as a 'spectacular mosaic' and an 'exhilarating journey' (Planet) and as 'nature poetry completely wired, plugged in and mediated' (The Gig). Ian Davidson has been described as 'the most interesting Welsh modernist writer' (P N Review), as a 'poet of conviction with rare touches of humour'. (Planet).

The author says of this book: These poems were written in Bangor, in north Wales, in Barcelona, in London, on the Baltic coast and in Fez and Marrakech. Despite the distances involved they are the result of a period of introspection and self-possession. Travel doesn't necessarily broaden the mind. In some cases only the long lines would do, and the language had to be chewed over, while in others, when the town was quiet and the blood had stopped pounding in my head, I could clip the tone and measure out the words a few at a time. A lot happened in the two years in which these poems were written. There was a war, and there were bombs in London. There were things hardly possible to deal with, including the return of an imperialist and colonialist attitude that I thought was part of history and would never return in my lifetime. Some of that gets in the poems. But I was mainly interested in myself, and how I'd got the way I had. How the traces of a life had marked the skin.

The French Revolution casts a long shadow, one that reaches into our own time and influences our debates on freedom, equality, and authority. Yet it remains an elusive, perplexing historical event. Its significance morphs according to the sympathies of the viewer, who may see it as a series of gory tableaux, a regrettable slide into uncontrolled anarchy--or a radical reshaping of the political landscape.In this riveting new book, Ian Davidson provides a fresh look at this vital moment in European history. He reveals how it was an immensely complicated and multifaceted revolution, taking place in different places, at different times, and in different spheres; and how subsequently it became weighted with political, social, and moral values. Stirring and dramatic--and filled with the larger-than-life players of the period and evoking the turbulence of this colorful time--this is narrative history at its finest.