Wresting in Mud by Herbert Williams

Praise for Wresting in Mud

These vulnerable, indeed transparent poems, like those of Idris and W.H. Davies which also eschew the veneer of sophistication, seek an instant response from the reader. Some are meant more for the platform than for the page, but the best of the latter, such as ‘The Old Tongue’, ‘Jones the Grocer’, ‘Out of Darkness’ and ‘Scum’ are likely to make that response a pleasurable ‘Yes’.

Dannie Abse

Herbert Williams’ ‘New and Selected’ has a wide range of subject and an engaging style. Sometimes he jokes with us, but it is the joking of a poet not blind to the pain of being human, and never free from the need to fight for answers to the puzzles of our existence. There’s a sense of history here – a favourite poem of mine is ‘Hill Fort’, where the watchful inhabitants espy everything except what the poet himself sees, today’s rooftops and wind-farms and inescapable dangers. Character poems introduce us to people like servile Jones the Grocer in his ‘fog / Of self-effacement’. Personal poems include loving tributes to his wife. Often Wales is the subject – a lost Wales in ‘Ghost Country’, an unpredictable ‘mess of institutions’ at the end of ‘Owain Glyndwr’. The spice of anger and tang of bitterness in some political poems coexist with lyrical moments when we feel the pathos of innocence; while the ‘Countdown to the Gulf’ went on, ‘The careless children played their airy games… their hands skittering like kites’. Some of Williams’ best poems use, tellingly, such devices as repetition, as in ‘Black Harvest’ with its rollicking metre and serious message, or the poignant lyrics of ‘A Thing of Human Interest’ and ‘You Simply Went Away’. These are honest, accessible and often moving poems that do indeed ‘sing a greeting’ to the future

Ruth Bidgood

For anyone in Wales with the slightest interest in who we are and how we manage our rain-driven lives this is essential reading. Ifor Thomas In Wrestling in Mud we encounter Herb Williams at the peak of his powers, a wise, reflective, mature poet who at the same time delights in being as scurrilous and acerbic as a thwarted teenager. Williams tackles the big themes – love, death, illness and trauma with a clarity and understanding that can make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, tears well up in your eyes and then, with a magician’s dexterity he changes the mood, yanks the rug of predictability and the next poem will turn those tears to laughter. There’s long lasting monogamous love sitting next to cider-sweet temptation; tragic illness juxtaposed with tragi-comedy. His technical skill as a poet is wide ranging, embracing rap and traditional forms will equal facility. In reading this book you will get to know Herb Williams very well. In the power of his art however, you will get to know yourself even better.

Peter Finch

In Wrestling in Mud we encounter Herb Williams at the peak of his powers, a wise, reflective, mature poet who at the same time delights in being as scurrilous and acerbic as a thwarted teenager. Williams tackles the big themes – love, death, illness and trauma with a clarity and understanding that can make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, tears well up in your eyes and then, with a magician’s dexterity he changes the mood, yanks the rug of predictability and the next poem will turn those tears to laughter. There’s long lasting monogamous love sitting next to cider-sweet temptation; tragic illness juxtaposed with tragi-comedy. His technical skill as a poet is wide ranging, embracing rap and traditional forms will equal facility. In reading this book you will get to know Herb Williams very well. In the power of his art however, you will get to know yourself even better.

Ifor Thomas

Herbert Williams