Friday Poem – 'Politics of Water' by Peter Finch

Seren Books

May 20

This week's Friday Poem is 'Politics of Water' by Peter Finch. Originally published in his 1996 collection Math, it now features in Volume One of his newly published Collected Poems.

This cover features a photo of a geometric concrete sculpture made up of hexagons. The text reads: Peter Finch Collected Poems One 1968-1997

Peter Finch's remarkable career spans over fifty years. He has been taking poetry to places it didn't know it wanted to go from the beginning; blending the avant-garde, concrete, visual, sound, performance and more conventional forms to create something unique. His new two-volume Collected Poems, edited by Andrew Taylor, cement his reputation as one of Britain's leading poets.

This cover features a photo of a geometric concrete sculpture made up of hexagons. The text reads: Peter Finch Collected Poems Two 1997-2021

Volume One brings together work from long lost chapbooks, broadsheets and limited editions, as well as more conventionally published work. Volume Two focuses on the second half of Finch's career with poems from later collections sitting alongside works from his prose books and those engraved in the public realm on sculptures, walls and buildings, particularly in his native Cardiff. Nerys Williams and Ian McMillan provide appreciative forewords to each volume.

POLITICS OF WATER there (here) are (were) places (pimples) in (on) Wales (wheels) I (we) don't (can't) go (gone) reservoirs (places) that (this) are (will be) the (a) subconscious (subterranean) (subtotal) (subliminal) (superfluous) (serenity) of (in) (on) a (the) people (people). Here (where) were (will be) pimples (scars) (gouges) (savage stripes) on (in) wheels (fields) (folds) I (you) (we) can't (can) (cannot) gone (grown) (green) places (princes) (parsons) (people) this (those) will be (will not) a (the) subterranean (terminal) (termination) (treeless) invasion (inversion) in (of) the (the) people (person) (personal) (private) (so private) (so personal) (only) it is (never) not (yours) (mine) (moan) (theirs) (his) (hers) (ours) (whose) dig (dirge) (deep) (down) (down) (down)

Order the Collected Poems Complete Set on the Seren website for £30.00, or buy them individually for £19.99 each.

We launched the Collected Poems at Jury's Inn in Cardiff earlier this week. Watch the live stream recording on demand on our AM channel now amam.cymru/seren.