We are delighted to announce the winning, highly commended and shortlisted poets in the new Poetry Wales Pamphlet Competition 2021, judged by Taz Rahman, Matthew Haigh and Nia Morais. The winning pamphlet will be published by Seren Books in February 2022. Ten shortlisted poets will receive feedback from the judges, while 2 highly commended will…
Category: Poems
Andrew Neilson: How I wrote ‘The Hustler’
“Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was a missing ingredient when I was trying and failing to write poetry as a young man.“ The Hustler We know we can’t finesse what’s been Michael Donaghy I met him twice. Once in my local, where suited he sat with a half of Guinness, his cue in its case like an…
Jack Solloway: How I wrote ‘Dating’ and ‘Shave and Haircut’
“[T]he poems, while ostensibly about other things, are just one-sided conversations in search of someone else. Most poems are, at least to begin with […]” I. Dating There are severed heads in the British MuseumThe human kind if you’d like to see themI can book a ticketIf you fancy it O, it says hereThey’re not…
Jessica Mookherjee: How I wrote ‘Jail Birds’
“I started to think of all the ways we are locked in our own selves and how much we can ever really be understood by others.“ Jail Birds The crow keeps records of my movements,no need for locks, his beak is keen and fast. Everywhere the starlings gather, they chitchateverything, quick quick, I go back…
Poetry Wales Presents Translation Challenge 2020’s Winning Translation
Translation Challenge (into English) has been held annually for over a decade alongside its sister competition ‘Her Gyfieithu’ (into Welsh) with the aims of encouraging the development of creative translation in Wales, internationalising our literature scenes and strengthening the relationship between Wales and the world. Each year a different source language and text are selected,…
Poetry Wales Summer 2020 Launch Event! Register for free now
Register to attend the virtual launch of Poetry Wales‘ summer 2020 edition on 7 September 2020 at 7pm. Spend the evening with (TBC) poets Carrie Etter, Jeni Williams, Philip Gross, Rob Miles, Mari Ellis Dunning, Helen Tookey, Sampurna Chattarji, Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch, Luke Samuel Yates, Jon Stone, Moniza Alvi, David Clarke, Ifor Thomas, Benjamin Palmer, Nicholas McGaughey,…
Tryweryn at 55: Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch’s ‘71,200 Megalitres’ with a new introduction by the author, and online exclusive essay by Sharon Morris – Poetry Wales 56.1 Summer 2020
Flooded or Drowned? – An Introduction to ‘71,200 Megalitres’ In November 2005 I was on a writing residency at Hawthornden Castle outside Edinburgh. One afternoon I happened to catch part of the BBC Radio 4 programme Open Country, in which the speaker was visiting ‘the Tryweryn reservoir’ to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of ‘the flooding’…
WBOTY 2020 Shortlist Poets: Interview with Deryn Rees-Jones
Editor Jonathan Edwards interviews former guest editor of Poetry Wales Deryn Rees-Jones whose collection Erato (Seren, 2019) is shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2020. JE: Huge congratulations on being shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year. How does it feel to be shortlisted? Is it especially important to you to be recognised…
WBOTY 2020 Shortlist Poets: Interview with Zoë Skoulding
Editor Jonathan Edwards interviews Zoë Skoulding, former Poetry Wales editor and shortlisted poet in Literature Wales’ Wales Book of the Year 2020.