All fours

Nia Davies was born in Sheffield and studied English at the University of Sussex. She has been editor of Poetry Wales since 2014 and has worked on several international and collaborative projects such as Literature Across Frontiers, Wales International Poetry Festival and Wales Literature Exchange. Her poems and essays have been published and translated widely and she has appeared in several international festivals. A frequent collaborator with other poets and artists, she co-curated Gelynion, a Welsh Enemies project on collaboration in contemporary poetry in Wales in 2015. Her pamphlets, Then Spree (Salt, 2012), Çekoslovakyalilasti ramadiklar mizdanmisiniz or Long Words (Boiled String, 2016) and England (Crater, 2017), were followed by her first book-length collection, All fours (Bloodaxe Books, 2017). She is undertaking practice-based research at the University of Salford.

'Nia Davies's poems are sharply attentive to the realm of the 'inner ear', a meeting point of external and internal environments. The lines have their own intense music, but instead of approaching song's recognition and resolution they push towards the unfamiliar. Archaeologies and soundscapes are carefully excavated in language that sparks at every turn, while multiple directions open for the reader and 'choice is a parallelogram / best made on the slant".' -Zoe Skoulding; 'Nia Davies writes rich and adventurous poems. Her work feels borderless, influenced by experimental American and eastern European poetries. In the event that an "I" surfaces in her work, it is defiantly plastic and multivalent.' - Dai George

• You will never guess my name 1. Mossy Coat 2. Pantheon 3. With Sinbad 4. 'I know descent lives in the word decent' 5. '& blow in the god's good wake to leave only pounded dust' 6. About me 7. First Riddle: Pussy Riddle Dialogue 8. Second Riddle: You will never guess my name 9. Third Riddle: No riddle Happy Birthday to me! 10. poem with sex in 11. psychoanalysis 12. in the year ninety 13. Hello Beautiful 14. Born in a moody basket 15. If you go west Listen 16. A word in your shell-like 17. Many Tremors 18. 'We make an insubstantial territory' 19. Of course he thinks part-mythic lemon yellow epithet 17. the mediums of viktor ullmann 18. Relations 19. Tiny nudist colony 20. 18 21. Dear Diary 22. Let's make an experience From Cekoslovakyalilastiramadiklarimizdanmisiniz or LONG WORDS 23. The hatch a bullet... 24. For your continued behaviour... 25. For those who were repeatedly 26. For those who have become like counterrevolutionaries 27. About to become the leader... 28. The most emotionally... 29. [two people]... 30. Most anticrystalising... 31. Are you one of those people... try, for a variety of reasons, a sledgehammer 32. It is not sufficient to be waiting like this 33. Things to try before you die 34. nature poem 35. the magical experience 36. I want to do everything