“The notion of sole authorship is inherently political; there is an accepted hierarchy to the question ‘who wrote it?’ and we challenge that by writing from the body, and from the lived space between us”
Author: Frances Turpin
Frances is Poetry Wales' Magazine Manager
Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana: How I Wrote ‘The names of things’
“I guess I listen and steal from what is going on around me. Sometimes I hear something hilarious or outrageous and think that has to go in a poem! I want to record and share it”
JP Seabright: How I Wrote ‘Mamgu’
“I guess it was an attempt to convey on the page the way the mind and memory works combining the known past (my mother reciting the town name), the unknown past (how my grandmother died and why my mum never spoke of her) and the in media res present”
Denni Turp: How I Wrote ‘How It Is’
“It’s a funny thing with writing, as so much of the time I find I don’t really know where I’m going to end up with a poem… I guess what I’m trying to say is sometimes it does happen ‘organically’ and sometimes it’s more purposeful”
Caleb Nichols: How I Wrote ‘BUS STOP, GWYNEDD’
“Sometimes a short poem or phrase feels a little like a gift: it arrives almost fully formed and I get the sense that adding too much deflates the impact of the image and sound of the poem.”
Wales Poetry Award 2022 | Winners Announced
On 12th May 2023, the online Awarding Ceremony for Wales Poetry Award 2022 (sponsored by Literature Wales) was held, hosted by judge Gwyneth Lewis and Poetry Wales editor Zoë Brigley. If you were able to join us on the evening, thank you so much for your attendance, and for making the event such a special…
‘Intricate seawhirl’: Dylan Thomas on Dylan Day 2023
“To unlock the vast majority of these poems we only need to know that Thomas saw human beings as inextricably bound up with the rest of the cosmos, from microbes to the galaxies”
Jim Lloyd: How I Wrote ‘The Mistle Thrush’
“This poem was unusual for me in that it was written very quickly. Although I experimented with different stanza lengths, this version is close to the very first sketched out draft which was in couplets”
Taylor Edmonds: How I Wrote ‘I Am’
“When I’m writing something new, I tend to let it splurge out however it lands, without thinking about form too much, as this holds me back during this initial draft. Then I curate the form more carefully when editing.”