Dominoes E-Book

Connor Allen

• Herausgeber: Lucent Dreaming
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 64

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Delving into his life and experiences of love, loss growing up mixed-race in Newport, and more, this is the debut poetry collection from award-winning multidisciplinary artist and former Children's Laureate Wales Connor Allen.

Leseprobe

Advance Praise‘A vivid and honest chronicle of a big heart with sharp edges.’Polarbear‘[A] stunning collection that is painful and joyful by turns [...] this is poetry with a clear sense of purpose and of place.’Professor Charlotte Williams OBE‘Connor has such a knack of giving us real, raw words and bringing them to life. Great stories through poetry which can resonate with so many. Connor never fails!’Aleighcia Scott‘Lyrical and heartfelt, Dominoes weaves personal stories and inner worlds to create a powerful collection exploring identity, loss, heritage and mental health. I admire Connor’s honesty and vulnerability when turning his experiences into art and I’m sure many will see themselves reflected in the poetry of Dominoes.’Taylor Edmonds‘Haunted by absent fathers and drenched in tears, this searingly honest collection is full of soul searching and questions of identity, tinged with deep regret and tender love.rites of passage in Pill or carnival time on Commercial Road while facing the challenges of everyday life on a tough estate. But we also chart inner landscapes of regret and loss – the death of a This is poetry as open heart surgery – raw, revealing, exposing and utterly true.’Jon GowerWe follow a kid from Newport as he grows up to be an artist, throughfriend, the passing of a much loved nan, the lover who lies in other arms.

Advance Praise‘Like Connor, I attended high school in Newport; a working-class kid with big aspirations that her school did not support. The anecdotal nature of the first section of Dominoesresonated with me as Connor sets the scene of his childhood and the backdrop for his story in these poems: anyone who has lived in or around Newport knows exactly where he is writing about.Dominoes moves seamlessly between sections as Connor explores childhood, race, mental health, identity and love with poetry that is completely unique to his experience, yet still speaks to the masses. He questions his place as a mixed-race individual in society, laments his relationship with his absent father and pens love letters to his beloved; I especially appreciated Connor’s work regarding the complicated nature of grief and losing a loved one. The repeated additions of I Wonder… at the end of each section moves the reader to reflect on what they’ve read and their own feelings surrounding the difficult (but certainly needed) topics Connor presents.If anyone watched The Making of a Monster, you will know that Connor is a phenomenal performer, and as I read through the poetry of Dominoes, I was able to visualise these poems being performed onstage. The act of writing poetry can be a vessel for catharsis – expressing the depths of one’s brain onto the page – and I firmly believe Connor has put his heart and soul into this collection with every line being delicately put in place. As a literature student, I have read countless works of poetry and prose discussing race and identity in conjunction with each other, but Connor speaks to a modern audience in Dominoes as he informs us of his verbatim reaction to the George Floyd murder and BLM movement; the escapism of literature is removed, and we are brought back to the harsh realities of societal marginalisation.Connor Allen is a poet for the twenty-first century. Modern, candid and moving, Dominoes is truly a work of art – I hope you appreciate the collection as much as I do.’Rhiannon Farr

Lucent DreamingDOMINOESCONNORALLEN

First edition (ebook)DominoesPublished by Lucent Dreaming Ltd. 103 Bute Street, Cardiff, CF10 5ADCopyright © 2023 Connor AllenPhotographs © 2023 Connor Allen and Katherine Sian ThomasAll rights reserved.No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission Connor Allen has asserted the author’s right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as author of this work. Cover illustration by Kamila Krol.ISBN 978-1-7396609-3-2Lucent Dreaming acknowledges the financial support of Books Council of Wales and Creative Wales.from the author.

To PEJYou were the first superhero to me.You are and always have beenthe colour in my grey.Love you always X

“The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world.” PlatoJean de La Fontaine“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”

CONTENTSIHAMMOND DRIVETALES OF A LIGHT-SKINNED YOUTTHE END OF A LAMBRINI BOTTLERUBBERSTHE BRANCHES OF MEWHAT DO YOU SEE?COLOURLESSGREYSOULI WONDER...11LOVEYOUSANDCASTLESTHE STORY OF BRIDGETI SEELIKE BEFORELETTER TO YOUHERE WITH YOUNANHEART & MINDI WONDER...

111STILL AWAKETIREDSYMPHONY OVERLOADSOMETIMESPUNISHMENTTEARS CRIEDDADDY ISSUESDEAR JAMAICAFATHER IS THE SONI WONDER...IVMIRRORSREMINISCINGW**** P********THIS GREAT BRITAINKING’S DILEMMAREMOVE THE KNOTREMINISCING IIFORGIVENESSI WONDER...NOTESACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I

HAMMONDDRIVEHammond Drive just off Cromwell RoadIs where my story first got toldActing bigger than big and dreaming boldOur ambitions were like currency but never soldHouses were coldMums couldn’t afford gas or electricSo you’d chuck on another hoody or a blanketDays were spent in the big car parkWith the patches torn off at our feetMotorbikes revving up and down the streetNo fathers around so all we had was each otherJust us and our single mothersThere were no locked doors in Hammond DriveIn and out of each other’s houses we wentDays spentPlaying up and acting toughChildhood dreams drawn out with chalk on concreteDreaming of, acting out, what we could potentially beJaffa having a fire in his back yardWhile wannabe gangsters rolled aroundTrying to act all hardOn odd days we’d take ourselves to Kemp ParkSurrounded bybasketball hoops, goalposts, fieldsof grass Group of friends and a football