Poetry Wales are delighted to share here a video featuring poet Samatar Elmi who performs the title poem of the upcoming poetry collection The Epic of Cader Idris (Bloomsbury/flipped eye, 2024). The poem explores the legend surrounding the Welsh mountain, Cader Idris, which was said to be the chair from which an ancient giant king, Idris, ruled his kingdom. Elmi explains:
“It’s about an ancient king who ruled a province in North Wales (his name was Idris, and he just so happened to be a giant) and a challenge he set for anyone who dared to spend a night at the summit of his mountain (they’d be rewarded with either poetic inspiration or madness). It’s about ADHD. Hopefully, it’s about being a poet too.”
As Elmi confirmed, his coming-of-age poem is an extended metaphor of living with ADHD, which is reflected in the tangential architecture of the poem’s form, journeying through a vast range of poetic forms, and in the content and themes.
Elmi was commissioned by Hull City Arts and Hull Jazz Fest (Out of the Box) to create a piece of work in collaboration with artists working in a different medium. Elmi, long interested in working with a choir, was introduced to Richard Sleight (Musical Director) and Clare Drury (Choir Producer) to compose an accompaniment arrangement of his poem with the Hull Freedom Chorus, a volunteer choir. The performance was recorded at the National Trust building, Maister House, Hull, in October 2023.
Samatar Elmi
Samatar Elmi is a poet, PhD candidate, and an international education consultant. Winner of the 2021 Geoffrey Dearmer Prize, poems have appeared in Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Magma, Iota and anthologised in More Fiya, Filigree, After Plath, and The Echoing Gallery. Elmi’s ‘Portrait of Colossus’ was selected as a PBS Pamphlet Choice.
‘The Epic of Cader Idris’, will be jointly published by Bloomsbury and flipped eye press in 2024.