The Writers of Wales Database

EDWARDS, RHIAN

33 Sunnyside Road, Bridgend, Mid-Glamorgan, CF31 4AE
Tel: 07789 950531
Email: rhian_edwards@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.rhianedwards.co.uk/, www.myspace.com/rhianedwards and http://www.tall-lighthouse.co.uk/p_rhian-edwards.html

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Rhian Edwards was born in Bridgend in 1977 and grew up in Matlock, Derbyshire. After spending fifteen years in London, she has returned to live in Bridgend. A poet, musician and songwriter, her poetry reflects her entanglement with musical rhythm. Rhian only started writing poetry in 2003 and has since delivered over 300 stage, radio and festival performances world-wide. Rhian has also had her poetry exhibited at the Royal Festival Hall and has received commissions to write poetry from the Poetry Society, BBC Radio 3, Arts Council England, Literature Wales and the Battersea Arts Centre.

Rhian won the 2011 John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry, and was also awarded the Audience Prize for her performance. She has recently completed her first collection, entitled Clueless Dogs, which is due for publication by Seren in May 2012.

Rhian’s pamphlet Parade the Fib (the tall-lighthouse, 2008) was awarded the Poetry Book Society Choice for autumn 2008. She has also published poetry in The Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Review, Arete, The Spectator, Poetry London, Poetry Wales, The London Magazine, Stand Magazine, Planet and Borderlines and also runs poetry workshops.

In 2006, she was crowned Best Performance by a London Poet 2005 and in 2003 was the first ever winner of ShortFuse Poetry Idol. Her poems bristle with sensual wit, chronicling relationships young and old, personal portraits and the minutiae of life as we live it.

Audio visual footage is available here 

Reviews:

"…Astounding Welsh performance poet with performances that get you in the emotional gut…”
The Verb - Radio 3

With respect to Parade the Fib (the tall-lighthouse, 2008)

"…Rhian Edwards makes the language sing and dance. Join her campaign for the liberation of poetry from all that is dry, stuffy, insincere and boring…"
Christopher Reid

“She captures and subverts cliché for poetry’s purpose, lets sound ring in the lines, weaves common speech with lyrical language…” –Gillian Clarke

“…The unique voice lies in the music of the language, a distinctly un-English sound, often in a minor key, elegiac but with unexpected leaps of the imagination. Against a Celtic bass-line, she sets her own modern turn of phrase and sense of humour…” – Hugo Williams

“Although her poems are accessible – and I would strongly recommend them to anyone who thinks they don’t like poetry – and supremely crafted they are also inhabited by something far rarer, an unerring ability to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.” – Michael Hodges, Time Out London

Selected Publications:
Parade the Fib (the tall-lighthouse, 2008)
Clueless Dogs (Seren, 2012)