Poetry Wales will be posting weekly/fortnightly prompts for its new competition Wales Poetry Award. Prompts are not mandatory nor required for submission, but intended as inspiration for new writing. Wales Poetry Award is open to international contemporary poetry and closes for submissions 28 November 2019. Click for more information. Writing prompt #2: Write a poem…
Huw Lawrence on how he writes a poem
“However tenuous the relationship between the inspiration and the final poem, that ‘moment’ in which something happened to make you pick up your pen remains your only connection with the obsessive process of writing that followed.” What lies behind a poem is mysterious. A poem’s ‘inspiration’ is often unexpected and sometimes barely reflected in the…
One week to register your interest for Spells + Sanctums, a free evening of poetry!
There isn’t long left to register your interest for Spells + Sanctums, a free evening of poetry co-hosted by Nia Davies and Rhea Seren Phillips. The event is on the 9th of September, 6-9pm at The Mall Room, Taliesin Create. Readers will include: John Goodby, Rhys Trimble, Eric Ngalle Charles, Mamta Sagar, Lee Prosser, Guinevere…
Writing prompt #1
Poetry Wales will be posting weekly/fortnightly prompts for its new competition Wales Poetry Award. Prompts are not mandatory nor required for submission, but intended as inspiration for new writing. Wales Poetry Award is open to international contemporary poetry and closes for submissions 28 November 2019. Click for more information. Writing prompt #1: Write a poem…
Maria Jastrzȩbska on how she writes a poem
“The best way to write a poem is underwater. The sounds of the world, of other people are muffled. Only their underbellies and limbs ripple through the water.” Geometric lines repeat themselves along the bottom of the pool or if you’re lucky enough to be in a clear sea shy fish suddenly appear from behind…
Hanan Issa on how she writes a poem
“Poetry is the ultimate language ‘glow up’ and it is where I go to try and make sense of the storm” Dragon-taming? I started writing about dragons. Not the friendly creatures that let you ride on their backs. I wrote them as wild monsters with blood-stained teeth and fiery tempers. They definitely ate…
40% off standard subscriptions to Poetry Wales TODAY ONLY
As of September 2019, every first Friday of the month, we’ll be giving you a discount on subscriptions to Poetry Wales from midnight to midnight. Why? Because we want to give our most loyal followers a chance to enjoy Poetry Wales. Our most recent polls on Twitter and Facebook revealed that money was the primary…
Andrew Spragg on how he writes a poem
“If you are not reading likely you are not writing.” Be wary of others’ methods or manifestos. Any sort of declaration. Two degrees, ten books and less sure than ever. It happens rarely every day. A few things resonate more than others – Tom Raworth’s Earn Your Milk (especially ‘Letters from Yaddo’ and ‘Letter to Martin Stannard’);…
10 Unmissable Poems Free Digital Download! (Part 5 of 5)
Read the final two of our top ten unmissable poems published in Poetry Wales from the last 5 years. To celebrate 55 years of publishing poetry, every Friday for the past four weeks we’ve released two poems from the list. As our final post, we’re including a free digital downloadable edition of the full list. Click…