Bøker av Nerys Williams

Nerys Williams' new collection questions what makes a Republic? Machinations of power? The speeches of politicians? The broad sweep of official histories? This sequence of 80 prose-poems, each constructed in 20 sentences, has arisen from the author's need to tell a more intimate history, to commit an untold oral history to paper. Williams returns to the meaning of "republic" in its Latin origins which meant "wealth of the people". The poems tell the story of a young Welsh woman growing up and coming of age in the 1980s and 90s, a time that culminated with new devolutionary powers in Wales. The explosion of the arts and culture looms large, through bands from New Order to my bloody valentine, but it is explored specifically through Cwl Cymru', and the power of Welsh-language bands like Datblygu. This story is also about class, as we explore a family history of hard work in jobs from retail to caregiving. The poems introduce us to family influences, from a father who urges the narrator as a child to 'own the stage' in an early school Eisteddfod, to a grandmother who worked long hours in her rural shop, and a mother who was the local midwife. There are stories told, overheard, handed down, sometimes translated from Welsh. Together, they create an expansive portrait of the era, including the challenges for women, Welsh-speakers, and other marginalized groups. Ferocious remarks about the Welsh in the popular media are dissected with satirical humour and appalled fascination, while other poems describe being a token woman and political outsider on a TV current affairs show panel, tolerated but ostracized. From her more recent home, the republic of Ireland, Williams poses the possibilities of a nation looking at itself and its history from afar. Wales has not been allowed to be a republic, but is subject to a state that has military claims on its landscape and a second home explosion which has a severe impact on its communities. There is rebellion to be found in the older meaning of "republic": since the wealth of the people is a wealth of sounded stories, culture, art, and history.

Managing Obesity in the Workplace comprehensively examines how obesity impacts business and provides examples of action that can be taken by employers to prevent weight gain and facilitate weight loss in their staff

Discussing the work of more than 60 poets from the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the Caribbean, from Sujata Bhatt to M. Philip NourbeSe and from John Ashbery to Eliot Weinberger, Nerys Williams guides students through the key ideas and movements in the study of poetry today. With reference to original manifestos and web-based experiments, as well as the role of information culture in shaping and distributing poetry globally this book engages with the full vitality of the contemporary poetry scene. Key Features* Wide topic range - from performance to politics, from lyric expression to ecopoetics and from multilingual poetries to electronic writing - enables provocative thematic links to be made * Discussion of global Englishes, dialects and idiolects aimed at those studying poetry on postcolonial literature and contemporary poetics courses* Contemporary relevance: relates poetry to reporting on global conflict, including the impact of the Iraq War* Student resources include a chronology, web resources, a glossary, questions for discussion and a guide to further reading