My Family and Other Superheroes - Edwards Jonathan

My Family and Other Superheroes introduces a vibrant and unique new voice from Wales. The superheroes in question are a motley crew. Evel Knievel, Sophia Loren, Ian Rush, Marty McFly, a bicycling nun and a recalcitrant hippo all leap from these pages and jostle for position, alongside valleys mams, dads and bamps, described with great warmth. Other poems focus on the crammed terraces and abandoned high streets where a working-class and Welsh nationalist politics is hammered out. This is a post-industrial valleys upbringing re-imagined through the prism of pop culture and surrealism. If the authors subjects have something in common with RS Thomas, or even Terry Street-era Douglas Dunn, his technique and approach owe at least as much to contemporary American poets like James Tate and David Wojahn. Serious, hilarious and a beautiful event, My Family and Other Superheroes offers the reader enchanting generosity, an alert expansiveness, deep skill, unaffected surprise and pure joy. I have rarely read a poetry collection that captures and transforms the magic of our ordinariness so superbly and honestly. David Morley