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This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Cei Newydd’ by Paul Henry from his Wales Book of the Year shortlisted collection As If To Sing.
The power of song, to sustain the human spirit, resonates through As if to Sing. A trapped caver crawls back through songs to the sea; Welsh soldiers pack their hearts into a song on the eve of battle, ‘for safe-keeping’; a child crossing a bridge sings ‘a song with no beginning or end’… Rich in the musical lyricism admired by readers and fellow poets, As if to Sing is an essential addition to this Paul Henry’s compelling body of work.
As If To Sing is available on the Seren website: £9.99
Voting is now open for the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award. Vote for your favourite book on this year’s shortlist via the Wales Arts Review website.
Click below or scan the QR code to preview the first 15 pages of As If To Sing
This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Animal Eden’ by Zakia Carpenter-Hall from her debut pamphlet Into the Same Sound Twice.
American poet Zakia Carpenter-Hall’s stunning debut pamphlet Into the Same Sound Twice is a place where ‘the ordinary rules of motion’ don’t always apply. What ensues are words, bodies and environments that thrum with new music. In language that is at once precise and tender, Carpenter-Hall leads us into rituals of care, ancestral memory, a rainbow that coruscates and various forms of rupture and repair.
Into the Same Sound Twice is available on the Seren website: £6.00
A year on from publication of her collection Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere, Angela Graham reflects on the creation of this innovative poetry collection and on what she has learned from readings.
May 30th 2023 marks the first year in the life of my first poetry collection, Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere. I’d like to consider what I gained from taking that step in the company of five other poets and what I’ve learned from reading from the collection to audiences.
I hardly need to state how sanctuary preoccupies the whole world. It was clear to me that the book should not be a solo effort but one undertaken with other poets so that the collection itself would be a welcoming space, a kind of sanctuary.
I sought out two poets from Wales and two from Northern Ireland (as I live in both places) who had some expertise in an aspect of sanctuary. They were not obliged to write on that theme. Furthermore, rather than giving a poem they had written, they would each write a poem with me. This deeper level of collaboration, although challenging, proved very fruitful.
It wasn’t until the reviews started coming in that I realised quite how unusual my approach was considered to be.
“Graham’s project is hugely experimental — few poets give space in their debut collections to others… as praxis, the project seems politically perfect, an unselfish poetic gesture underlining the ‘unevenness’ of sanctuary that is genuinely thought-provoking.”
Tim Murphy, London Grip
“the poems… are very finely wrought, whether by Graham or by her guests. This is a generous inclusion, of course, but Graham is a poet who is skilled and sublime enough, I imagine, not to feel any threat from it or, indeed, from anyone or anything at all.”
Mab Jones, Buzz Magazine
To me, poetry is one of the most intimate means of bridging the gap between one person and another, usually between the poet and reader or listener. It seems natural to me to want to achieve another kind of intimacy, in this case, during the actual process of creating the poem. I pay unreserved tribute to Phil Cope, Mahyar, Viviana Fiorentino and Csilla Toldy who allowed me to reflect on drafts with them; who were never defensive; who showed, to a remarkable degree, the humility of the true artist whose care is about the work in hand and not their own ego. I have gained immeasurably from being part of this whole-hearted process and consider myself very fortunate.
In addition, my mentor, Glen Wilson was tactful and committed and I am delighted that he gave a fine poem to the book. I was very moved when Glen sent me a recording of a beautiful song he composed called, There Must Be Somewhere. I felt this was evidence of how the theme and experience had entered him, to emerge from him afresh as something beautiful in a new medium. He performed this at the launch during the Belfast Book Festival in June last year. Covid kept Viviana away entirely and Csilla had to join via video but it was none the less wonderful to be together as a group.
All this hasn’t made me feel the book is any less mine. It has expanded the whole work without taking anything away from me.
The book in performance has been a revelation to me. I am a TV/film producer by trade so the audience comes first. If they can’t hear, are uncomfortable, or baffled then it’s a waste of everyone’s time. In a reading people can’t see the text so I have greatly enjoyed working out how to convey things that are clear on the page via quotation marks or italicisation, for instance, or by means of a line-break or capitalisation. The importance of poem titles has become more evident and the fact that they are an important poetic resource to be exploited.
I’ve tried to design the performance to suit the audience rather than develop an unchanging ‘act’. It’s true one sometimes has no idea of the nature of the audience so there has had to be some smart footwork occasionally! Recently I was asked, at half an hour’s notice, to read to a group of no-nonsense Belfast women at a reconciliation centre. I could tell at once that they would see through anything that was less than authentic and that I had to take very particular care to give something of my life, in addition to the poems.
I learnt a lesson there about how important story is. I had set out the background to a poem which is to do with an unsolved mystery in my family. After the final poem, when I made to leave, a cry went up, ‘Don’t go! Tell us what happened.’ I had moved on, in terms of my reading, but that desire to know how things end, which is, in essence, a desire to know the truth, was in my listeners’ minds and they wanted it satisfied. So the writerly me realised that there, in that mystery and its resolution, is a key element of the book I’m currently editing. I hadn’t appreciated its appeal.
In several sessions I have brought typescripts of poems or used power point to set out text and also used images and videos. An audience of poetry lovers is more experienced in listening to poetry than a more general mix of people. The latter, so far, in my experience, welcome some help in encountering what is not, to them, a familiar medium.
I was Author of the Month in December last year for Libraries Wales and this gave me the chance to meet a variety of audiences. In each case, the librarians were very helpful because they know their clients. They devised materials that would appeal. In Bargoed we had beautiful printed cards, showing one of my Christmas poems.
In Llanelli library the experience was particularly communal even though the group were strangers to each other. I think this was because of something I’ve done in every reading. I start by inviting people to take sixty seconds to consider what ‘sanctuary’ means to them. This unlocks a fascinating range of experience. When I read my poems, perhaps they enter that internal space whose door has been pushed ajar by those intimate reflections.
The final two poems in the book go together well. ‘There Must Be Somewhere’ attempts to face the brutal facts of how dangerous life is yet how faith in the possibility of sanctuary exerts itself nonetheless.
The final poem, ‘Home’ shares the greatest lesson I’ve learned from writing the book: sanctuary may be a place but it’s also something we can be.
Angela Graham
Angela Graham has a poem published in a chapbook edited by Phil Cope called The Oldest Music (Parthian), published May 2023.
Her poem ‘The Irish Civil War, County Tipperary, Summer, 1922’ is currently touring Ireland as part of Poetry As Commemoration’s Poetry Juke Box curation. It is one of 10 poems selected from the whole of Ireland and is in Limerick and Derry as of 19th May. This major initiative marks the Decade of Centenaries, 1912 – 1922, one of the most turbulent in Ireland’s history.
You can also watch an NVTV documentary about Angela’s poetry in Ulster-Scots here.
Sanctuary is – urgent. The pandemic has made people crave it; political crises are denying it to millions; the earth is no longer our haven. In Sanctuary, Angela Graham and five other writers from Wales and Northern Ireland, addresses the many meanings of sanctuary from the inside. How we can save the earth, ourselves and others? How valid is the concept of a ‘holy’ place these days? Are any values still sacrosanct? We all deserve peace and security but can these be achieved without exploitation? With Phil Cope, Viviana Fiorentino, Mahyar, Csilla Toldy and Glen Wilson
This week’s Friday Poem is ‘When in Recovery’ by Emily Blewitt from her collection This is Not a Rescue.
In This Is Not A Rescue we are introduced to a poet whose voice is fresh and striking, who writes both forcefully and tenderly about refusing to be rescued, rescuing oneself, and rescuing others. This book is about finding love and keeping it, negotiating difficult family and personal struggles, and looking at the world with a lively, intelligent and sardonic eye.
This is Not a Rescue is available on the Seren website: £9.99
As it is Mental Health Awareness Week, this week’s Friday Poem is ‘Some Therapists’ by Bryony Littlefair from her debut collection Escape Room.
Bryony Littlefair’s debut collection Escape Room explores the possibilities of freedom, goodness, meaning and connection under late capitalism. Can we escape the imperatives of money, gender and human fallibility to freely construct our own identities – should we even try This complexity is balanced with a resolute joy, humour and irony. If you’ve ever grappled with ‘a desire you could not understand / like wanting to touch dark, wet paint’, had an identity crisis at a corporate away day, or just not known what to do with your Sunday morning, the Escape Room is open for you.
Escape Room is available on the Seren website: £9.99
To celebrate National Walking Month, we asked some of our authors to suggest walks featured in their books which anyone can enjoy. Read on to find out more.
Walking the Valleys is a collection of fifteen walks around the South Wales Valleys. Author Peter Finch suggests trying these interesting urban rambles which feature in the book alongside John Briggs’s lively photographs.
Aberdare: ‘Four and a half miles circular walk around Aberdare, Queen of the Valleys. A splendid walk that takes in the canal, the remains of the iron industry, the chapels and the bustling and once choir-filled town. Ups and downs throughout and thoroughly invigorating. End up at the Cynon Museum, best in the valleys.’
Walking the Valleys is available from Seren for £14.99
Gelligaer to Bargoed: ‘Six and a half miles from Pengam rail station to Gilfach International (smallest rail platform in south Wales) via townscape and open moor. Pass through an historical vortex – Roman remains, standing stones, Celtic crosses, Welsh castles, reclaimed coal tips and rushing rivers. Start at one rail station and finish at another.’
In her book The Edge of Cymru, Julie Brominicks recounts her year-long walk around the edge of Wales following the Wales Coastal Path and Offa’s Dyke Trail. Here she suggests some easily accessible sections of the route which made an impact on her
‘Porthmadog and Criccieth are both well served by connecting trains and buses making the coast path between them easily accessible for non-drivers like me. This is a dreamy walk. Even the fascinating steam trains, boats, traffic and noisy high street of Porthmadog seem to be tolerated by the surrounding mountains which speak of something else, stronger but silent. Afon Dwyryd is particularly poetic. In all seasons and weathers its light is nuanced, its estuary waters shift. There is intrigue in the shingly marsh at Borth-y-Gest and the labyrinthine paths and secretive inlets that follow. Less so along the beachy stretch from the headland to Criccieth but this stretch is good for being brisk. And Criccieth has a lot more going on than sweet tea-rooms, should you care to look.’
‘Meanwhile for drama with minimum effort, Llanilltud Fawr to Aberogwr is a spectacular walk largely atop an undulating clifftop plateau with less climbing than you might expect for such rocky theatre. These cliffs consisting of uplifted Triassic and Jurassic rock which is rare in Cymru, have a tendency to topple, leaving exposed rock the colour of honeycomb, and rubble like bombed cathedrals, fossils and the occasional dinosaur on the beaches. The views are expansive, the walk remote, and the wooded valleys strange unexpected islands of wildlife. Perhaps I’ve been lucky but late light here on each occasion I’ve visited has been an other-worldly chiaroscuro.’
‘A few precious (or should I say precious few) parts of the coast are accessible for all. The Millennium Coastal Park at Llanelli, in essence a well-designed modern promenade, is a glorious landscaped swirl incorporating wildflower planting, ponds and new woodlands. Meanwhile the promenade at Tywyn though old-school in its ruler-straightness is no less accessible. Much of my childhood was spent on Tywyn prom, whose salt-sticky handrail is as familiar to my skin as the foam creaming up the beach like a Guinness top. A stretch of coast path at Aberporth is also noteworthy – whilst only a mile long, it is fully wheelchair accessible giving users access to a lofty vantage point over the bay.
Walking to me, is opportunity to think, breathe, gain perspective. Yet often I feel it is perceived as a radical act. It seems I don’t ‘go for a walk’ in the expected way. I’m not mad about kit and dislike guidebooks, am not very good at directions and enjoy not knowing much where I am. Furthermore I don’t drive and I’m glad. For me, something is lost by driving some place to have a walk. Walking to me is less pastime more intrinsic, and it never ceases to puzzle me that to engage in the oldest and most reliable way of travelling can cause people so much surprise!’.
The Edge of Cymru: A Journey is available from Seren for £12.99
Real Dorset is the latest addition to the Seren Real Series of psychogeographic guides. Whilst writing the book, Jon Woolcott explored much of the county on foot and suggests visiting these note-worthy places.
‘At events for Real Dorset, I’m always asked to name my favourite place in Dorset, or sometimes a favourite walk. It’s like picking your favourite child. Each time I choose a different place. Variety is Dorset’s wonder, from the high chalklands of Cranborne Chase to the flat clay of Blackmore to the folded valleys of the west. But my (new) favourite walk is where the land drops swiftly to the sea, around the Valley of the Stones in the south.
Dorset has few stone circles or dolmens – but most are gathered together around the Valley of the Stones, an ancient natural quarry formed by glaciation from which the stones for the monuments were dragged. These are all easily accessed from the South Dorset Ridgeway, which some have speculated was once a processional route between the megaliths. Walking from the sensationally ugly Hardy Monument, built for Nelson’s captain (‘Kiss Me Hardy’) you can find The Hellstone, a dolmen dramatically reconstructed by the Victorians, The Grey Mare and her Colts, a long barrow covered mostly now by earth, and the remote Kingston Russell Stone Circle. Close to the Hardy Monument itself, is a new stone circle, built only in 2018 and which aligns to the midsummer sunrise. Aside from the stones, the views are magnificent and the walking generally easy and flat. Take a sandwich, watch the stones, feel the ancient power.
Map: OS Explorer OL15 (Purbeck and South Dorset). By car: park in the National Trust car park at the Hardy Monument. By public transport: First Bus run services along the coast which stop at Portesham.’
Real Dorset is available on the Seren website: £9.99
If you’re still hungry for some walks but fancy yourself more of an urban explorer, check out these suggestions from Cardiff poet Peter Finch. During lockdown, he decided to walk to Cardiff border, as Covid restrictions confined people to staying within their local authority. Walking the edge allowed Finch to view the city as never before, and you can too on these routes.
The Peterstone Gout Diversion
Peterstone Wentloog to the Gout and back (via the golf club)
An easy circular three mile ramble on Cardiff’s weirdly flat out of this world coast land. Pills, drainage reens, sea-operated sluices, the remains of a medieval harbour, site of the great flood of 1607 and a golf club that will let non-members into the clubhouse. ‘
Graig Llysfaen
Breath-taking views from this slide along Cardiff’s protecting ridge. Start at the Ty Mawr, take in a cold war communications tower, Cardiff’s most northerly extremity in a farmer’s field and the magnificent trees of the Coed Coesau Whips. Start at the Ty Mawr and finish at the Maenllwyd Inn.
Edging the City is available on the Seren website: £9.99
We hope you enjoy exploring the walks suggested by our authors. If you end up following one, remember to tag us in on social media @SerenBooks. Happy National Walking Month!
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This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Valet’ by Dai George from his collection Karaoke King.
Dai George’s confident second collection Karaoke King, addresses the contentious nature of the times. Always deeply thoughtful but also alternately ebullient, angry, curious, ashamed, the poet moves through urban and digital spaces feeling both uneasy and exhilarated. There is a feeling of history shifting, as a younger generation confronts its ethical obligations, its sense of complicity and disappointment. Ecological crisis hovers in the background. Karaoke King also contains numerous reflections on popular culture, culminating in ‘A History of Jamaican Music’, a sequence at the heart of the volume speaking to urgent contemporary questions of ownership and privilege, pain and celebration.
Karaoke King is available on the Seren website: £9.99
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Listen to the Karaoke King playlist, which pulls together songs that tie in with poems from Karaoke King, on Spotify.
This week’s Friday Poem is ‘The Crux’ by Vanessa Lampert from her debut collection Say it With Me.
Say It With Me, Vanessa Lampert’s debut poetry collection, is a call to unite. These wry, candid poems playfully record the foibles and fables of domestic life. Portraits concerning memory and family juxtapose poignant poems of parenthood, loss and the body in triumph and decline. Through perceptive, vivid storytelling, Lampert lays bare human truths that are curious, funny and moving.
Say it With Me is available on the Seren website: £9.99
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This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Girl Golem’ by Rachael Clyne from her new collection You’ll Never Be Anyone Else.
You’ll Never Be Anyone Else offers a unique story of survival and empowerment told in spite of experiences of violence and prejudice. A confident exploration of identity, self-acceptance and experiences of ageing, Clyne uses playful wit, and colourful imagery to explore Jewish and lesbian identity through various stages of life. Clyne is a distinctive new voice with a powerful message about being true to yourself.
Golem: man made from clay and Kabbalistic spells, by rabbis to protect Jews from persecution. Truth: תֶמֶא†was written on his forehead and God’s name on his tongue.
Tchotchkele (diminutive of tchotchke): a trinket, a cute child. Mazel tov: good luck. Cnadle: a dumpling. Schmutter: a rag.
You’ll Never Be Anyone Else is available on the Seren website: £9.99
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Watch Rachael reading the title poem from You’ll Never Be Anyone Else on our Youtube channel:
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