The Memory Tray - Softcover

Deryn Rees-Jones

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1854111167 ISBN 13: 9781854111166

Publisher: Seren, 1995

Synopsis

Deryn Rees-Jones' lively debut collection explores issues of gender and identity, memory and desire, through witty juxtapositions of character, plot and theme.

Formative poems resound with magical imagery, as in 'The Great Mutando' and recapture the dream-states of childhood where 'Grandma in the Garden' appears, not as a homely matriarch, but as a terrifying figure with "one wild Modigliani eye hooking the clouds".

Other poems focus on love, from initial erotic frisson to break up and "the strange geographies of hurt". Also included are ambitious, various monologues like 'Lovesong to Captain James T. Kirk' and the provocative 'Metamorphoses' featuring a transvestite who dreams of being Marilyn Monroe.

"Deryn Rees-Jones proves herself to be a fascinating and compelling poet. There are two main strengths to this poetry, which endlessly repays attention by providing fresh nuances of seeing: the ability of Deryn Rees-Jones to manage a wide emotional range, and her fluidity of meaning."
Critical Quarterly

"Rees-Jones is a joy to read because she stands for life"
Orbis

Deryn Rees-Jones was educated at the University of Wales, Bangor, and Birkbeck College, London. She is an Eric Gregory Award winner, and The Memory Tray was shortlisted for a Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection. In 1996 she received an Arts Council of England Writer's Award. She lives in Liverpool, where she lectures at the University of Liverpool.

About this title

About the Author

Deryn Rees-Jones was born in Liverpool, and educated in North Wales and London. She is the author of 7 collections of poetry including ‘The Memory Tray’ (1995) which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. She has twice been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize with her collections ‘Burying the Wren’ (2012) and ‘Erato’ (2019) which were also Poetry Book Society Recommendations. She edited the influential anthology ‘Modern Women Poets’ for Bloodaxe. She has received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors and was picked as one of the top ten women poets of the decade in Mslexia magazine. She is Professor of Poetry at the University of Liverpool where she co-directs the Centre for New and International Writing, and edits the Pavilion Poetry Series for Liverpool University Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: Seren
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1854111167
• ISBN 13: 9781854111166
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64