Photo Credit: Bernard Mitchell In the wake of the recent passing of one of Wales’ finest poets, her friend and fellow poet Merryn Williams shares some words about Ruth Bidgood It was on a rainy day in the Black Mountains, looking for something to read, that I picked up a battered copy of Ruth Bidgood’s…
Category: Poems
Kandace Siobhan Walker: How I wrote ’16 The Academy’
Interviewed by Zoe Brigley Every year I try to write a sonnet, and every year I succeed at writing something else. 16 The Academy Capitalism is natural—healthy, actually. We had too many rainforests, we needed more upmarket cafés. We needed austerities like food deserts and mandatory minimums, retirement ages vanishing behind the Earth’s curvature. What…
Liz Anastasiadis: “How I wrote Phases”
Interviewed by Zoe Brigley “I think what is so captivating about the moon to poets is that it’s this gleaming beacon in the sky. What do we do when we think deeply? Oftentimes people look to the sky for answers, especially clear night skies. It’s a process that’s deeply emotional and yet scientific… We as human beings…
Siôn Tomas Owen on Rugby
Siôn Tomas Owen reads his piece ‘On Rugby’ from the feature ‘Poets on Sport’ in Poetry Wales 57.1
Laura Chalar: “How I wrote ‘The infanta walks her poodle after a sandstorm'”
“When that moment arrives, a verse or a phrase will come into my head, and that will be the start of the process. Once I have those few words in my mind, I know that I have a poem, no matter how long it takes for it to take shape.”
Poetry Wales Pamphlet Competition Winner and Shortlist Announced
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…
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…