I wanted the freedom to move between different forms: couplet, sonnet, quatrain, ballad, but my Rimbaud always speaks in verse, no matter how loose Several years ago I had a residency in France and, in between drinking wine and weekends being a flâneur in Paris, spent my time translating French poets. I worked my way through the…
Rose Rouse: How I Wrote ‘Notes on the Lure’
Interview by Zoë Brigley “I think poetry and prose… provide important ways of breaking into those taboos such as sex and death when it comes to older people“ Notes on the Lure We squat beneath a black umbrella in Morfa Bychan as the much younger pair strip off, naked amid the pelt and fury of drip…
Hollie McNish: How I Wrote ‘an apology and a warning to my local bookshops’
Photo credit: Helmi Okbara | Interview by Zoë Brigley Hollie McNish, author of Slug (available in paperback from all good bookshops now) discusses her poem written in celebration of Independent Bookshop Week (18-25 June) an apology and a warning to my local bookshops almost every week a family member sends me a photograph of my book in a local bookshop…
Matthew Smith: How I Wrote ‘As if this is a Dreamscape’
Interview by Peter Molnar [Content warning for trypanophobia/fear of needles] A punchy, intriguing ending can hold me in its thrall as a reader As if this is a Dreamscape Lantis Insulin Driver, 7:43am. A needle pricked to skin’s breaking, the driver clicking, a cold burn streaking, seeping through this strip of fatty tissue. Cold…
Poetry Wales at Seren Cardiff Poetry Festival
A hybrid poetry festival taking place from Friday 29th – Sunday 31st July Cardiff’s biggest poetry festival is back for 2022, and this time it’s hybrid! Our friends at Seren have been working hard to put together an amazing lineup of readings, launches, workshops and more this July, all centring around the theme of Wellness…
Leigh Anthony Manley ‘The Moon is not a Dream Anymore’
A poem to celebrate the Welsh national football team’s achievement in reaching their first World Cup Finals since 1958 The Moon is not a Dream Anymore (Inspired by Wales v Ukraine, 5th June 2022, FIFA World Cup Play-off Final) The last time we were there Pelѐ had the world at his feet and man had not…
Kate Noakes: How I Wrote ‘Hair’s Breadth’
Interview by Zoë Brigley There are many poems concerned with other breath related topics from different cultures and geographies. This is one such. Hair’s breadth I The child watches a pair of hares chase around the paddock by the holiday cottage. Rime has whitened grass and gorse in every field from there to the edge…
Rhys Owain Williams: How I Wrote ‘Mother and Child’
Interview by Zoë Brigley I think I write poetry by ear too, writing and rewriting lines repeatedly until they sound ‘right’ when I read them aloud Mother and Child Josef Herman, oil on canvas, c. 1945–50 Unhappy days for you, now, are few – yet this dull lunchtime seems to hang. On your iPad, you…
John Greening: How I Wrote ‘Sea Urchins’
Photo credit: Adrian Bullers | Interview by Zoë Brigley The Roman poet Horace was right to recommend holding back your work for several years before publishing it. You get a better sense of its value… Sea Urchins Cape Ann, Massachusetts We have trampled those delicate eggs of the night, the sea urchins, fragments of a…