Jonathan Edwards

- United Kingdom -

First collection, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren) won the prestigious Costa Poetry Award 2014 and the Wales Book of the Year People's Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His poems have won prizes in the Cardiff International Poetry Competition, the Ledbury Festival International Poetry Competition and the Basil Bunting Award, and appeared in magazines including Poetry Review, New Welsh Review, Poetry Wales and The North. He works as a teacher.

Jonathan Edwards’ poems are funny, poignant, vivid and full of the ordinary painted in technicolour. He is a also brilliant reader of his work. If I had to choose a favourite line it would perhaps be this one from View of Valleys High Street through a Café Window. It seems to me to capture what Edwards does in his poems again and again which is demonstrate how the imagination can transform and elevate the humdrum while still looking reality square in the face:

A man with a cumulonimbus
beard enters a phone box and I wait

for him to emerge as Superman. He checks
the tray for change,

Jonathan Edwards is a teacher and the title Edwards chose for his poems, My Family and Other Superheroes, is a tribute to another teacher. “We had this English teacher in secondary school, Mr Pateman, who was incredible,” he says. “Our first class reader was My Family and Other Animals [by Gerald Durrell] so the stealing of that name is a homage to him.” The book contains some superb titles, Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in Crumlin for the Filming of Arabesque, June 1965 or Evel Knievel Jumps Over my Family. You don’t need to know who Evel Knievel is - the poems builds up the picture magnificently:

I close my eyes, then open them:

is this what heaven feels like,
some motorcycle Liberace overhead,
wheels resting on air?

Edwards grew up in South Wales in ‘the Valleys’ and many of his poems are rooted in this place, as shown in these lines from Anatomy:

This spine is the A470;
these palms are Ebbw, Wye, Sirhowy. This tongue

is Henry VIII’s Act of Union, these lungs
pneumoconiosis,

The imagery is sometimes tough and unstinting, as in View of Valleys High Street through a Café Window:

a single mam
pushing a pram, her head down and her face
so much a frown, it’s like she’s trying to mow

the pavement.

At the same time his poems capture the universal - how it feels to be young in Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in Crumlin for the Filming of Arabesque, June 1965 for example:

My father

parks away from them, around the corner,
in his brand new car, a ‘30s Lanchester,
with stop-start brakes, a battery he shares
with a neighbour. All sideburns and ideas, a roll-up
behind one ear and a flea in the other
from my gran for missing Eucharist,

This verse also demonstrates his deft ability to capture character in a few lines. This really shines in his lovely poem The Voice in which my Mother Read to Me:

It’s not her ‘Gateau – no, ice cream – no… I can’t make the choice’ voice.
It’s not her decades late, fourth change, ‘Is this skirt smart enough?’ voice.

The limited opportunities of the people Edwards grew up with are a strong theme of his work: Owen Jones describes the man in the kebab shop who once tried out for Cardiff City but now has his dreams “scribbled on papers in his pockets” outside a betting shop.

Edwards makes great use of popular culture, such as in the poem The Hippo:

if you were to rise, show your eyes, your mouth,
would you have Martin Sheen’s mud-crazy face,
breaking smoke-water in Apocalypse Now?

He uses vernacular language to great effect when creating a conversational ‘voice’ for this heart-warming poem:

Song

So come to me, by plane, by train, by car,
by unicycle, girl, by self-drive van,
by Twitter, FaceTime or by sleight-of-hand,

Jonathan Edwards won the hugely significant Costa Prize for Poetry for his first collection, “Joyful and dynamic – a collection that’ll make you laugh and make you think” – Costa Poetry Book Award Judges. There is no doubt we will hear more of him in the future.

More about the poet

Poetry

/ Evel Knievel Jumps Over my Family

A floodlit Wembley. Lisa, the producer,
swears into her walkie-talkie. We Edwardses,
four generations, stand in line,
between ramps: Smile for the cameras.

My great-grandparents twiddle their thumbs
in wheelchairs, as Lisa tells us to relax,
Mr Knievel has faced much bigger challenges:
double-deckers, monster trucks, though the giraffe

is urban legend. Evel Knievel enters,
Eye of the Tiger drowned by cheers,
his costume tassels, his costume a slipstream,
his anxious face an act to pump the crowd,

surely. My mother, always a worrier,
asks about the ambulance. Evel Knievel
salutes, accelerates towards the ramps.
I close my eyes, then open them:

is this what heaven feels like,
some motorcycle Liberace overhead,
wheels resting on air? Are these flashes
from 60,000 cameras the blinding light

coma survivors speak of? Before he lands,
there’s just time to glance along the line:
though no one’s said a thing,
all we Edwardses are holding hands.
/ Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren in Crumlin for the Filming of Arabesque

June 1965

Sunday. The crowd beneath the viaduct
waves banners made from grocery boxes, bedsheets:
Welcome to the valleys Mr Peck!
Wind turns their chapel dresses into floral
parachutes; their perms don’t budge an inch.
The emotion of it’s too much for one girl’s
mascara. We love you Miss Loren! My father

parks away from them, around the corner,
in his brand new car, a ‘30s Lanchester,
with stop-start brakes, a battery he shares
with a neighbour. All sideburns and ideas, a roll-up
behind one ear and a flea in the other
from my gran for missing Eucharist,
he coughs and steps down from the running board,

as two Rolls-Royces pull up opposite.
Gregory Peck, three years after being
Atticus Finch, steps from one, says Good morning.
From the other – it isn’t! – it is, wearing her cheekbones.
My father’s breakfast is nervous in his stomach,
but he grabs his Argus, pen, and Yes, they’ll sign.
Her high heels echo away through the whole valley.

That’s how my father tells it. Let’s gloss over
how his filming dates aren’t quite the same as Google’s,
the way Sophia Loren formed her Ss
suspiciously like his. Let’s look instead
at this photo of the crowd gathered that day,
he walked towards to share those autographs,
his fame. There, front and middle, with her sister,

the girl he hasn’t met yet – there. My mother.
/ The Voice in which my Mother Read to Me

isn’t her good morning, good afternoon, good nightvoice,
her karaoke as she dusts, make furniture polite voice,
her saved for neighbours’ babies and cooing our dog’s name voice.

It isn’t her best china, not too forward, not too shy voice,
or her dinner’s ready, your room looks like a styvoice,
or her whisper in my ear as she adjusts my tie voice.

It’s not her roll in, Friday night, Lucy in the Sky voice,
her Sunday morning, smartest frock, twinkle-in-the-eye voice,
that passing gossip of the vicar with the Communion wine voice.

It’s not her ‘Gateau – no, ice cream – no… I can’t make the choice’ voice.
It’s not her decades late, fourth change, ‘Is this skirt smart enough?’ voice.
It’s not her caught me with the girl from number twenty-one voice.

That voice which she reserved for twelve-foot grannies, Deep South hobos,
that sleepy, secret staircase, selfish giants, Lilliput voice.
That tripping over, ‘Boy, why is your house so full of books?’ voice.
/ Half-time, Wales vs. Germany, Cardiff Arms Park, 1991

Nil-nil. Once the changing room door’s closed,
the Germans out of sight, the Welsh team can
collapse: there’s Kevin Ratcliffe, belly up
on the treatment table; Sparky Hughes’s body
sulks in the corner, floppy as the curls

which he had then. All half, they’ve barely had
a kick. Big Nev Southall throws his gloves
to the floor, like plates in a Greek restaurant
as, in tracksuit and belly, Terry Yorath
looks round at a room of Panini faces:

he doesn’t know yet he will never get them
to a major finals. He does know what to say.
Ryan Giggs, still young enough to be
in a boy band, stands up, doing an impression
of his poster on my wall. The crowd begins

to ask for guidance from the great Jehovah
and Ian Rush’s famous goal-scoring
moustache perks up. He’s half an hour away
from the goal that cues the song that makes his name
five syllables. What he doesn’t know

is I’m in the stand in my father’s coat,
storing things to tell at school next day.
My father pours more tea from his work flask
and says We got them now butt, watch and asks
again if I’m too cold. What we don’t know

is we’ll speak of this twenty years from now –
one of us retired, one a teacher –
in a stadium they’ll build down by the river.
But now it’s Rushie Sparky Southall Giggs.
8.45: the crowd begins to roar,

wants to be fed until they want no more.
The tea tastes just like metal, is too hot
and something catches – right here – on the tongue.
The changing room door opens and they step out,
toe-touching, stretching, blinking under floodlights –

it’s time to be the people we’ll become.
/ How to Renovate a Morris Minor

Thatʼs him, in the camouflage green overalls,
hiding under the car all day from my mother.
What is he but a pair of feet, my father,

muttering prayers to God and the sump gasket,
wearing oil drips, enough zips for all
his secrets? On his back, he pokes a spanner

up at a nut, as if unscrewing heaven;
grease-fingers make a crime scene of the kitchen.
He gives the stars in his bucket to the bonnet

and when he sees his face in it then it
is smiling. His foot on the accelerator
makes the world go, his right arm at the auction

canʼt say No and when the day is over,
thatʼs him, thatʼs him – heʼs snoring on the sofa,
Practical Classics open on his lap –

his eyes dart under their lids as he sleeps,
like Jaguars heʼs racing in his dreams.
/ Anatomy

These shoulder blades are Snowdon, the Brecon Beacons.
Walk gently on them. This spine is the A470;
these palms are Ebbw, Wye, Sirhowy. This tongue

is Henry VIII’s Act of Union, these lungs
pneumoconiosis, these rumbling guts
the Gurnos, this neck Dic Penderyn. This manner

of speaking is my children, my children’s children.
These vital organs are Nye Bevan, this liver
Richard Burton, this blood my father. These eyes

have been underground for generations; now
they’re adjusting to the light. This gap-toothed smile
is the Severn Bridge, seen from the English side.
/ View of Valleys High Street through a Café Window

Out there, policemen in attention-seeking
fluoro-vests eye up a single mam
pushing a pram, her head down and her face
so much a frown, it’s like she’s trying to mow

the pavement. Brollies bob above each head
like thought balloons, if everyone were thinking,
Fuck me, it’s raining. They’re not thinking that,
these lovers who hold hands at just the height

of shopping bags, or this girl who smokes a fag
and rides a bike past, like a really crap
steam train. A man with a cumulonimbus
beard enters a phone box and I wait

for him to emerge as Superman. He checks
the tray for change, as his hot water bottle
wags its tail. In this window, our ghosts,
those silly sods, sit at the pavement table,

eating cake from their left hands and getting
soaked. A board outside the travel agent’s
puts a price on the sun. The democratic
rain falls on it, on them, on everyone.
/ In John F. Kennedy International Airport,

a toothy blonde, whose name tag said Lucille,
served me at check-in. I showed my ticket, was surprised
when she said, ‘That’s been cancelled. Sorry, sir.’
‘The flight to Cardiff’s off?’ I said. ‘It can’t be, can it?’
‘No sir,’ she said, ‘you don’t quite understand. Wales
has been cancelled. It no longer exists.’

‘What?!’ I said. ‘What do you mean, Wales doesn’t exist?’
‘Sir, do try and calm down,’ said Lucille.
‘The US Government has simply decided Wales
doesn’t exist. You can hardly be surprised.
For God’s sake, you guys never even made it
to the soccer World Cup finals. But don’t worry, sir:

just for the convenience of clients like you, sir,
we’ve re-created the essential Welsh existence
in a small museum in Kansas. You’ll just love it.
Male voice choirs sing Calon Lân,’ beamed Lucille,
‘as bonneted crones serve cawl-and-Welsh cake surprise,
and there are satellite link-ups with the King of Wales,

Tom Jones, and his sister, Catherine Zeta, direct from Wales
via LA. Now, could you please stop crying, sir?’
I glanced round the airport: it was full, to my surprise,
of Welshmen, mourning their land which didn’t exist.
Wrapped in Welsh flags, girls ten times lusher than Lucille
asked each other where to they could score a hit

of cyanide, as men opened paracetamol, dropped it
into duty-free vodka, blubbing for Wales.
Dazed, I watched the next passenger approach Lucille
and her say, ‘I’m sorry, that’s been cancelled, sir.’
This guy’s suit was that quality they say no longer exists,
a daffodil in his lapel, so I was surprised,

when he heard Wales had been cancelled, he flashed a surprised
smile. When she told him they’d re-created it
in Kansas, he danced a jig, laughing, ‘Wales doesn’t exist!’
That face looked familiar – who was this betrayer of Wales?
As she told him, ‘We’ll switch you to the Hawaii flight, sir,’
I leaned in to hear and that was when she said it, old Lucille: ‘Our apologies again that Wales no longer exists.
What an honour and surprise to serve you. Please, call me Lucille.
Now I hope it’s a pleasant flight, Mr First Minister, sir.’
/ Girl

That girl’s the girl I mean. That one now, wearing
no-animals-were-harmed-in-making-these-
leopardskin leggings, ears posing the question

of what are ears for, really,
but bearing the weight of the biggest silver-
coloured hoops on earth? In diamanté

scarlet heels, six inch,
when she walks, everything sparkles, everything
limps. Her hair is piled up on her head,

like the kind of coastal clifftop rampart
cameras swoop in at from the sea,
in historical action movies, featuring

Mel Gibson. Up her sleeve
is a tattoo, a Chinese symbol, and what it means
is clear. Look, that’s her now, outside The Mermaid,

going a little cross-eyed as she draws
on a cigarette and shouts across the street,
asks an acquaintance if she’d like

some, would she? So how else
can I put it? How much clearer can I be?
That girl’s the girl. That girl’s the girl for me.
/ The Hippo

is solo, hobo, incognito,
two boulders curving out of Dettol-murk,
in a zoo his photo advertises,
doing a sponsored sitting-still all day.
Stop being a cliché, hippo, or I won’t

write a poem about you. Then you’ll be sorry.
What is your body but the verb To wallow?
What is the water but a part of self?
Google says you can crush a Ford Sierra
between your jaws. They don’t say how they test this.

Candyfloss-high boys crowd your glass, betting
they could hold their breath underwater longer,
they could leap from one boulder to the other.
I abandon you
for the giraffes, stupid as window cleaners,

the lions, sunshine with teeth,
but keep coming back:
if you were to rise, show your eyes, your mouth,
would you have Martin Sheen’s mud-crazy face,
breaking smoke-water in Apocalypse Now?

Closing time. One last go. O please, hippo,
don’t be so self-effacing, so tight-fisted.
Come on out, don’t you know
we love you? Wait. Is that a flash of flesh,
a hippo peepshow, or are you still snoozing?

A little girl says, Dad, that island’s moving.
/ Nun on a Bicycle

Now here she comes, rattling over cobbles,
powered by her sandals, the gentle downhill
and the grace of God. Now here she comes, her habit

what it was always waiting to become:
a slipstream. Past stop signs, the pedestrian
traffic at rush hour, the humdrum mopeds,

on a day already thirty in the shade:
with her robe fluttering like solid air,
she makes her own weather. Who could blame her

as the hill sharpens, she picks up speed and smiles
into her future, if she interrupted
the Our Fathers she’s saying in her head,

to say Whee, a gentle Whee, under her breath?
O cycle, Sister! Look at you now, freewheeling
through the air conditioning of the morning –

who’s to say the God who isn’t there
isn’t looking down on you and grinning?
/ Song

So come to me, by plane, by train, by car,
by unicycle, girl, by self-drive van,
by Twitter, FaceTime or by sleight-of-hand,
oh lease yourself a pack-mule, a giraffe,
oh steal yourself a moped, pay a man
to carry you here, girl, on piggyback,
or get the railway to lay extra track
up to my door, up to my waiting hands.

So come to me, on fresh air or on credit,
oh hoof it, leg it, go by Shanks’s pony
over stony ground and live off grass
or hedgerow, girl, whatever you can forage,
and rest on river banks, beneath a roof
of forest. Navigate your way by stars
or GPS, but listen, girl, be quick.
Oh speed yourself towards my waiting skin.

So come to me. Oh score yourself a gun,
a false moustache, girl, and a native tongue,
and smuggle yourself in the early hours
under wire and across the border.
Or buy yourself a wrecked and promising
motorhome and let dawn find you, girl,
with oil-stained cheeks, just working till it purrs
or goes. Oh drive towards my waiting bones.

So come, by raft, by hovercraft, or do
a goose-fat, nose-clipped, brave or water-winged
breaststroke through the sea that’s parting me
from you, or fit a tractor engine to
a li-lo, rubber ring, a rowing boat.
My home’s made by these hands, this skin, these bones.
My home is made of straw and fragile stars.
Oh come to me. Oh make this where you are.