I've known Tim Richards for a long time.
It could've been longer, as we both attended Aberystwyth Uni. in the early 1970s. While I was heavily into left-wing politics there, Tim concentrated more on 3rd World First. I recall that group collecting money and leafleting on the streets (well, street) and I must have passed him many times.
We met up in the early 80s and the first encounter was amusing.
I'd expressed an interest in the Welsh Socialist Republicans and myself and my wife went to Tim's house in Abertridwr to meet up with him and a few others.
I didn't know at that time, but my colleague and namesake at Pen-y-dre (who later became a great friend) was a prominent local Labour member, who even appeared on a party political broadcast. I later found out the Staff nicknamed him 'Mister Average' as a consequence.
I had never had any time for the Labour Party : reformist, Unionist and, in the Valleys, as corrupt as the Masons.
The entire meeting consisted of Tim and the others quizzing me about Labour strategies and eying me rather suspiciously. I was totally baffled!
This could've put me off, but I knew that this was my politics and soon became inspired by many of those involved, especially Alun Roberts, Robert Griffiths and, of course, Tim Richards.
Tim was my political mentor in many ways : an idealist who always stresses the need for involvement in local communities ; he has even been arrested for his beliefs when he expressed strongly republican views. The trumped-up charges could never stick against Tim's intricate legal brain.
The anti-poll tax campaign symbolized Tim's ideas of putting direct action into process and he helped many people who had been forced into court simply because of their poverty and inability to pay that iniquitous tax.
In those days Tim was a script-writer, journalist for 'Y Faner Goch' (monthly paper of Cymru Goch) and pamphleteer extraordinaire.
Though he had written verse in school in Swansea, it wasn't until the birth of Red Poets' Society (as we were then) that he took to it with the same fervour and energy he had given to many campaigns.
He has since appeared in every single issue bar the first and issue 5 ( available on our website www.RedPoets.org) features four poets : Jazz, Alun Rees, Sian Roberts and himself.
'Subversive Lines' ( published by Red Poets, £5) is his first ever collection and brings together most of the poems which have been in the magazines, plus some new material.
It illustrates all his characteristic traits : it's full of humour, imaginative twists , passion and verbal Molotovs.
On the cover is his own photo taken in The Netherlands of a car with a tree and plants growing out of it. It represents his desire to see a better world and through his poetry and life, to change people's consciousness.
'Crime Lesson' epitomizes Tim's view on what crime really is : the greatest criminals being those profiteers in the City who steal millions with impunity.
'The Sheep of Wales' is a veggie rallying cry (even though Tim isn't one), where he imagines a militant army of sheep taking over. It's like 'Animal Farm' condensed, revisited and reborn.
'Drunk!' and 'Stoned!' are excellent performance pieces, as is the explosive 'Fuck Em'. In the former he envisages the puking piss-artist as ' a non-lethal organo-chemical weapon'.
'Capitalists' encapsulates in just five verses what many would take tomes to express, hitting us with the subversive last line - 'they know all about money but its worth.'
His invective against news broadcasts and the right-wing press are equally scathing and ,again, the final line of 'Daily Hate' is packed with wit as he sums up the paper's attitude to Europe and its loathing of 'the whole bloody continent!'.
His poem 'Red Poets' Society' ( a name he prefers to Red Poets) shows his self-deprecatory humour; poets might like to think of it as show biz , but ultimately it's a minority interest - 'We got our fans,both of them.'
Two poems attacking the monarchy combine lacerating wit and a quirky vision, with 'Aliens' depicting them from another galaxy.
A series of poems look closely at the absurdity of modern life, using hyperbole to great effect -
'If you are losing interest in life and despairing of my reply please press 10' ( 'Helpline').
Two poems share his deep involvement in the anti-nuclear power movement in Wales and 'Necklace' is most moving, with its description of the effects of radiation from Chernobyl.
'Landscape Photographs' shows another side of Tim, with his enthusiasm for photography; though he realises that no photo can possibly capture the beauty of the scene -
' The mountains rule me
allowing me to capture them
fleetingly, on their own terms
in a simple photograph.'
Please come along to the Imperial Hotel, Merthyr Tudful on June 5th (7. 30 pm ) for the launch of 'Subversive Lines' as part of the Merthyr Rising events.
I know Tim has been busy writing down his political memoirs and there are many wonderful stories.
The following poem is based on one of these.
What I don't explain is that we actually got the wrong place and the huge lime-burnt graffiti couldn't be seen from the Garden Festival site in Ebbw Vale in 1992!
3 A.M. ON MANMOEL MOUNTAIN
for Tim
Slopping in muddy ditchwater
cords damp
as a piss-the-bed
sweating steep rock faces
burning in the lime
maps upside down
tired inside out
trying to find contours
by torchlight,
the fanatical driver
reversing towards dark heather
the perfect backdrop
for words in lime
it's all been planned
except the fog
thick as a hangover
after a Skull Attack night -
lights!......lights?........where?
over the next ridge
headlines of hypothermia
songs of martyrs
3 men of Gwent
2 men of Merthyr
went over the mountains
for the burning of lime
a path of potholes
slopes like wet slides,
white of bird-shit
splashed and spotted,
rubber gloves and masks
to perform operations
hallucinating sheep into buckets,
arms drooping to housing estates
backs throbbing like headaches,
ceasing to care
whether it was FEE WALES
or FREE WAFFLES
while below the final rivets
the blow-lamps and drills
finish off the structures
of a 3D advertisement -
brushing away the fog
painting in the stars,
a 40 foot constellation
FREE WALES our exhibit
burnt with the lime.
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