{"product_id":"first-rain-in-paradise-paperback-1","title":"First Rain in Paradise - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eGwyneth Lewis\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eFirst Rain in Paradise\u003c\/em\u003e is a book about falling. Gwyneth Lewis's highly inventive poems trace an interior landscape carved out by the trauma of childhood emotional abuse through subsequent chronic ill health and towards a hard-won resurrection. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese accounts of living in and emerging from the dark wrestle with the angel of language. Suffering does not preclude humour and may, in fact, require it, in poems written from the shadows but committed to the light. This work refuses to keep pain a secret. Shame is a lurking presence. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eGwyneth 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. This book shows a deepening of her technical, imaginative and intellectual resources which are challenged and exercised to the full. The poems map uneasy terrains with realism and - most importantly - with joy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'The bracing latest collection from Welsh poet Lewis traces an arc from the trauma of maternal abuse...through aftershocks of chronic illness, self-harm, and shame...to recovery (\"I am found\"). Her lines both stun and revive, moving between Plathian imagery... and disarming candor (\"Underneath, I'm a bit of a sweetie\"). The collection radiates hard-won self-possession... Readers will enjoy discovering this writer of extraordinary gifts.' \u003c\/b\u003e- \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review of \u003ci\u003eFirst Rain in Paradise\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGwyneth Lewis\u003c\/strong\u003e was Wales's National Poet from 2005 to 2006, the first writer to be given the Welsh laureateship. Her first six books of poetry in Welsh and English were followed by \u003cem\u003eChaotic Angels\u003c\/em\u003e (2005) from Bloodaxe, which brings together the poems from her English collections, \u003cem\u003eParables \u0026amp; Faxes\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eZero Gravity\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eKeeping Mum\u003c\/em\u003e, and by \u003cem\u003eA Hospital Odyssey \u003c\/em\u003e(2010), and \u003cem\u003eSparrow Tree\u003c\/em\u003e (2011), winner of the Roland Mathias Poetry Award (Wales Book of the Year) in 2012. Her sixth collection in English, \u003cem\u003eFirst Rain in Paradise\u003c\/em\u003e, is published by Bloodaxe in 2025. Her other books include \u003cem\u003eSunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book about Depression\u003c\/em\u003e (Flamingo, 2002), \u003cem\u003eTwo in a Boat: A Marital Voyage\u003c\/em\u003e (Fourth Estate, 2005), \u003cem\u003eThe Meat Tree: new stories from the Mabinogion\u003c\/em\u003e (Seren, 2010), \u003cem\u003eNightshade Mother: A Disentangling\u003c\/em\u003e (University of Wales Press, 2024). With Rowan Williams she translated \u003cem\u003eThe Book of Taliesin\u003c\/em\u003e (2019) for Penguin Classics. Her Welsh collection, \u003cem\u003eY Llofrudd Iaith\u003c\/em\u003e (Barddas, 2000), won the Welsh Arts Council Book of the Year Prize, and her English collection, \u003cem\u003eKeeping Mum\u003c\/em\u003e was shortlisted for the same prize. Both \u003cem\u003eZero Gravity\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eKeeping Mum\u003c\/em\u003e were Poetry Book Society Recommendations. Gwyneth Lewis composed the words on the front of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, opened in 2004. In 2014 she dramatised her book-length poem \u003cem\u003eA Hospital Odyssey\u003c\/em\u003e for the BBC, broadcast on Radio 4's \u003cem\u003eAfternoon Drama\u003c\/em\u003e, and delivered her Newcastle\/Bloodaxe Poetry Lectures, published in \u003cem\u003eQuantum Poetics\u003c\/em\u003e (Bloodaxe Books, 2015). She received a Cholmondeley Award in 2010 for a distinguished body of writing, and in 2022 she received an MBE for her services to literature and mental health. Gwyneth Lewis lives in Cardiff, Wales, and has spent a number of years in the USA, where she was a student at the graduate writing division of Columbia University in New York. She has held fellowships at Harvard and Stanford and a teaching position at Princeton University's English department. She teaches regularly at Middlebury College's world-renowned Bread Loaf School of English program and, in 2016, was the 2016 Robert Frost Professor of Literature in Vermont. Her critical study, \u003cem\u003eThe Poetry Detective: Writing and Reading Poetry Through Fear\u003c\/em\u003e, is published by Princeton University Press in 2025.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 96\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.4 x 9.1 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e May 20, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52730938097971,"sku":"9781780377339","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/hMU6hcL5b9781780377339_9618060a-8cb8-411e-9ce1-184f75418abc.webp?v=1763845009","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/first-rain-in-paradise-paperback-1","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}