The Poetry of Rodney Relax
Where there’s poetry, anarchy and energy, Rodney Relax is to be found. He was one of the group of writers who were the dynamo for Rebel Inc in its early days. Then with Sandie Craigie and some others he generated a sporadic literary efflorescence, the Yellow Café, which always guarantees a night that will etch its way into your memory.
Rodney, who has been called Edinburgh’s punk poet legend, is not an easy man to box. He has played diverse gigs from the Bongo to Leith Dockers Club and they’re always innovative, often with video and music as well as words. Jem Rolls of Big Word says his ‘darkly comic 
and unvarnished’ work ‘punches through the page’. A lot of other people agree. At a time when many people bemoan the difficulties of getting poetry into the book chains, Rodney’s latest venture into print, Dark Afore Nine, a joint publication with Graham Brodie, Jim Ferguson and John McGarrigle, has sold out its print run of 300 and he has had to retrieve the few remaining copies to supply the copyright libraries. Nae wurri.
© Jennie Renton 2006; poems
© Rodney Relax 2005
Gordon Peters on Thu, 18th Jun 2009 1:59 pm
ah jest heard tell o yer poetry an think its kinna barry.
keep it comin, Rodney
Gordon Peters on Thu, 18th Jun 2009 2:02 pm
we have a wee group will meet again from late august on in the Strathmore on Wednesdays; maybe you could give us a reading some time
Fay Young » Here and (not) there on Sat, 27th Jun 2009 5:03 pm
[...] Never mind. We had real, live poetry while shoppers passed by. Iyad, who now lives in Glasgow, read two of his own poems and one by Mahmoud Darwish in both Arabic and English. Ryan, who said he refused to be insulted by the disappearing poems (”Let’s hope they are decorating someone’s fridge somewhere”), read one about his family home in the US. And Gordon Munro (a Leith councillor with a not so private passion for poetry) read a poem in Scots dialect about Leith’s internationalism by the Leith poet Rodney Relax. [...]
Leith Open Space » A passion for poetry on Mon, 20th Jul 2009 3:12 pm
[...] read a poem in Scots dialect about Leith’s welcoming internationalism by the Leith poet Rodney Relax. While Jason Bergen of Oxfam reminded us that Scotland is not always a welcoming place for [...]