by Richard Thomas
Zygote Poems by Richard Thomas traces a father’s journey from ‘Do you want this baby in HTML / or plain text?’ through to his beloved daughter’s first year. The use of language mirrors baby talk, the mind fog created by anxiety and the ‘Surtralleene’ prescribed to deal with it. A unique and brave unfolding of young fatherhood.
Paperback; 62pp; 178×127mm; 978-0-9932119-5-9; July 2015; Cultured Llama; £7.00
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Zygote Poems is as engaging as it is starkly honest, grappling in equal measure with the anxieties and charms that come with new fatherhood. Thomas’ poems offer a guide through the mundane intimacy of daily routines, from dirty nappies, to tinned pineapples, to newly cut teeth, as the richness of language and wordplay veer away from easy sentimentalities to confront the very real challenges (and joys) of holding on to one’s own emotional strength as they take responsibility for another.
Angela Szczepaniak
Lecturer in English and Creative
Writing, Plymouth University
Richard Thomas is a poet from Plymouth, UK with poems and haiku published/forthcoming in Orbis, Fire, Weyfarers, Caught in the Net, The Lake, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Neon Highway, The Coffeehouse, Lunar Poetry, Reflections, Notes from the Gean, Presence, Bottle Rockets, The Screech Owl, Carousel SW, Venus in Scorpio, Wild Orphan, Futures Trading, Tribe, Tears in the Fence and The IMPpress, as well as on the websites Clinic and Neutral Norway, amongst others.
Having graduated with a First Class Honours BA in English and Creative Writing from Plymouth University, Richard now studies an MA of the same title. Richard was shortlisted for the National Poetry Competition 2011 and his first full collection of poems The Strangest Thankyou was published by Cultured Llama in 2012.
Previously Editor of the poetry e-zine Symmetry Pebbles, Richard is now the Creative Writing Editor for Tribe, and was Managing Editor for the 2015 issue of Plymouth University’s creative writing journal INK. Richard is a regular performer of his work, both with and without accompanying musicians, and he has performed all over the South West, but most notably at Port Eliot Festival, Barnstaple Fringe, and Apples and Snakes’ ‘Forked’ at The B-Bar, Plymouth; he has also performed his poetry on BBC Introducing for Radio Devon.
Other books by the author
The Strangest Thankyou (Cultured Llama, 2012)
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