The Forest Under the Sea by John Barnie

Winner of Welsh Arts Council Prize for Literature

The finalist for Wales Book of the Year 2008

Fellow of Yr Academi

Praise for Barnie’s poetry

Characterized by a probing seriousness, the volume is also energized by Barnie’s trademark ironies – a wryness he sees operating in the structures of the universe. His vision is best described as teasingly dark. Longlisted for the 2007 Book of the Year award for his previous collection, Trouble in Heaven, John Barnie proves with The Forest Under the Sea that he is unquestionably one of our most urgent contemporary voices.

Damian Walford Davies

John Barnie is a poet and essayist from Abergavenny, Gwent. Lived in Denmark from 1969-1982. Editor of Planet, The Welsh Internationalist from 1990-2006. Has published several collections of poems, mixed poems and fiction, and two collections of essays, one of which, The King of Ashes, won a Welsh Arts Council Prize for Literature in 1990. His collection Trouble in Heaven (Gomer, 2007) was on the Wales Book of the Year 2008 Long List. John Barnie plays guitar in the bilingual blues and poetry group Llaeth Mwnci Madoc/Madoc’s Moonshine. He is a Fellow of Yr Academi.