{"id":1112,"date":"2025-01-15T10:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T10:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gwynethlewis.com\/site\/?page_id=1112"},"modified":"2025-08-18T15:07:42","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T15:07:42","slug":"first-rain-in-paradise","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/gwynethlewis.com\/site\/first-rain-in-paradise\/","title":{"rendered":"First Rain In Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"First<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

First Rain in Paradise<\/em> is a book about falling. Starting with a 15th-century manuscript depicting the fall of Adam and Eve, the poems present a portrait of a drenched, catastrophic landscape, asking how human trauma relates to a fantasy Eden. Shame is a lurking presence. Horror has to be confronted, lending a gothic tone to a series of poems about spiders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gwyneth Lewis\u2019s highly inventive poems trace an interior landscape carved out between the trauma of childhood emotional abuse, subsequent chronic ill health, and a tentative movement towards a hard-won resurrection. These accounts of living in and emerging out of the dark wrestle with the angel of language. Pain does not preclude humour and may, in fact, require it, in poems written from the dark but committed to the light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gwyneth Lewis has won wide acclaim for her versatile and varied writing across genres, most notably in her award-winning poetry in both English and Welsh. First Rain in Paradise<\/em> is her sixth collection of poems in English. The book shows a deepening of her technical and imaginative resources which are challenged and questioned to the full. The poems map uneasy terrains with realism as well as \u2013 most importantly \u2013 with joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher: Bloodaxe books<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Her lines both stun and revive, moving between Plathian imagery\u2026 and disarming candor\u2026 The collection radiates hard-won self-possession\u2026 The reader come[s] to trust the poet\u2019s resilience\u2026 Readers will enjoy discovering this writer of extraordinary gifts\u2019.
Publisher\u2019s Weekly<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

From a Welsh poet well used to crossing borders comes a sixth collection of ardour and courage\u2026These are poems of darkness and danger \u2014 probing, unsettling, appalling\u2026 also delightful, finding humour and pleasure where they can.
Vona Groarke, The Irish Times<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gwyneth Lewis\u2019 latest poetry collection is one which navigates darkness with both weight and wit\u2026 What\u2019s striking\u2026 is its technical daring\u2026 Despite the depth of pain that is being explored\u2026 humour, sharp and sure, also shines through, lending its lightening (in both senses of the word) to proceedings\u2026 Lewis has long been a writer of rare skill, but this latest whose her at the height of her imaginative and intellectual powers\u2026 [It is] a marvel, and a very affecting reading experience indeed.
Mab Jones, buzz<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First Rain in Paradise is a book about falling. Starting with a 15th-century manuscript depicting the fall of Adam and Eve, the poems present a portrait of a drenched, catastrophic landscape, asking how human trauma relates to a fantasy Eden. Shame is a lurking presence. Horror has to be confronted, lending a gothic tone to a… Read More »First Rain In Paradise<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":100,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1112","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nFirst Rain In Paradise - Gwyneth Lewis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gwyneth Lewis has won wide acclaim for her versatile and varied writing. 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