Hexerisk (Paperback or Softback)

Rhys Trimble's Hexerisk homes in on the intersection of six sheep tracks in a field near Bethesda in Gwynedd as an emblem for discourses in collision, starting right down at the level of the word: 'IDRISsyndrôme', 'fricainterpenetrative', 'redrawnyddu'. Dense with pun and sound play and dancing across the page, Trimble channels Maggie O'Sullivan and Ulli Freer with occasional nods to Joyce and Whitman whilst fashioning his own unique 'speechthought' that reterritorializes Welsh and English, with dashes of Polish. This intensely energised writing is drenched in the headlong rush of the world's sensations, yet also capable of steadying self-reflection: 'a small adventure in self archiving'. Urgent, edgy and hilarious ('HOW DOES PRICKSONG / RELATE TO WREXHAM?'), Trimble admits, courtesy of Jack Spicer, that 'my vocab did this to me.' Now it's your turn.

- Scott Thurston

Is this a delving among language's microparticles? A retake on Cage? Burroughs' cut ups themselves cut up? It's Sebald's five-pointed quincunx put to new use. Memories of Mac Low, Prynne, Ashbery, Fisher, and those other writers who have all been determined not to face the world as it usually is. Hexerisk is this. It has a street-wise bi-lingual Welsh sensibility that fixes wales as the real place it actually is. Trimble, man of the future. Already here.

- Peter Finch