The Shipwrecked House Jackie Kay Timothy Adès on Colin Sydenham's

Timothy Adès on Colin Sydenham's Horace

"A Welsh writer of European stature

each trying to break the silence

down on his luck

Khaled Mattawa once remarked how rare it was "to see a poet growing in experimentation as he grows in age"

The Shipwrecked House Jackie Kay Timothy Adès on Colin Sydenham'sReader's nomination for Guardian First Book Award 2013 Anchors, shipwrecks, whales and islands abound in this first collection by young Anglo Breton poet Claire Trvien. Trviens is a surreal vision, steeped in myth and music, in which everything is alive and like the sea itself constantly shifting form. Fishermen become owls; a woman turns into a snake, while another gives birth to a tree; a glow worm might become a wasp or a toy on standby. Struck