Whether you have read John Barnies work over many years, or are new to it, this miscellany of memory, reflection, scholarly analysis, and creative pieces works as a celebration of Barnies work across decades as writer, editor and musician. It is, as editor Matthew Jarvis says, a communal response to a writer who is justifiably described as one of Waless most distinguished and respected literary figures. Jarvis opens by introducing Barnies prolific body of work and explains the title, taken from the writers poem, Dawn Chorus, published in his 1996 collection Heroes where birds are described as being wired to the dynamo/of blood and bone. Equally, the cover photo of Barnie playing his resonator guitar is a reminder of the many talents of a man wired to the dynamo of creative engagement. Richard Marggraf Turley, fellow member of the poetry and blues trio Hollow Log , captures Barnies love of the blues in his poem, Mr Barnie Got the Blues: Its the blues, see, he growls as he strums/Its the blues, see, he growls as he strums,/Just like it was in the old kingdoms.// A-woo-oooh, a-woooh, a-wooh .The book is organised thematically under the headings: Friendship, Memory, Music, Science, Editing, Nature, Art, Poetry. These cover main areas of Barnies interests, work and life, and there is a coda which includes an insightful interview with Barnie by Jarvis.

A Checklist of Major Works serves as a useful resource. One of the real strengths of this volume is the range and quality of work included, the mix of genres. Some of Waless most prestigious writers are gathered here to pay tribute, in their various ways, to a man who sits at the heart of Waless cultural and literary life. Greg Hills essay explores his long friendship with Barnie, along with Johns self-avowed atheism. Hill writes that he shares Johns disapproval of the way religious institutions function as agents of repression and hypocrisy and notes one of Barnies key themes of human beings as lonely travellers through the cosmos. Hill acknowledges that he finds such an outlook affirming rather than negative, but yet is able testament to the friendship to also distinguish his own position: I wouldnt call myself an atheist. All the same, John has always been a challenging friend whose writings hold me to account for my responses to them. Mike Jenkins friendship poem, Only Now, gives us a snapshot of Barnie emerging/from that red shed/full of clutter.

From your hibernation/as the sun hovers/over your adopted Ceredigion. Some of the poets have written on themes that run through Barnies work, such as David Lloyds Some Birds for John Barnie and Zo Skouldings inventive Germinal sequence, both from the Nature section. Ned Thomass essay, Sunlight in Your Hands, discusses Barnie as a memoirist, with focus on Tales of the Shopocracy (2009) but also some discussion of the later Footfalls in the Silence (2014). John Barnie grew up in Abergavenny after the Second World War, and his earlier memoir serves also as a social history of a post-war small-town world, albeit with the mountains of that area, the Skirrids, the Blorenge, the Sugar Loaf a continuous presence on the skyline. Ned Thomas first established Planet magazine in 1970 to create, as it says on the Planet website, a forum for debate about Wales in English, as well as encouraging a dialogue between English-speaking Wales and Welsh-speaking Wales. As Gwen Davies writes in her piece, Desk Editor: At Planet with John Barnie, 1985-1991, kindness, humanity, wit, heart, and truth are what John is about, as is literature. Emily Trahair, current Planet editor, also reminds us, in her essay, of Barnies editorial agility and his awareness of magazine publishing as craft and vocation, where accuracy, precision, and clarity are imperative. In his editorials, Barnie, from that small office in Aberystwyth, often wrote with foresight about political decisions that would have lasting and disastrous effects, such as the War on Terror, runaway capitalism and climate change, something that Barnie would go on to address in his superb 2001 verse novel, Ice .

Barnie is left to have the final word, a nice editorial touch. In his interview of 2017, Jarvis asks What is ultimately important to you at the moment? Barnies answer is human overpopulation. To him, this is the root cause of all the other woes that are already upon us climate change, mass extinction, deforestation, desertification, the pollution of the oceans. And yet, despite everything, the poems keep coming, and while they do, he will write them down.For Robert Minhinnick, Barnies art is a constant and ritualistic reaffirmation of poetry itself. For Barnie, it is, he supposes, a kind of celebration. Fiona OwenIt is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.

com , with the permission of the Welsh Books Council. Gellir defnyddio''r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com , trwy ganiatd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.