Friday Poem – ‘Ash’ by Robert Walton

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Ash’ by Robert Walton from his collection Sax Burglar Blues.

Sax Burglar Blues by Robert Walton is packed with memory, incident, observation, opinion, humour, outrage and elegy. Subjects include: woodlice, jazz, teachers, grandparents, a canary who runs for President, Sisley’s lovely painting of the Gower, the iconoclastic poet John Tripp, a night bus named after Dusty Springfield, a Dad who loves Cardiff City, the annoying closure of bookshops and much more.

​‘Dip into Walton’s jazzed-up version of the world and you will inevitably surface from the pages in a brighter hue.’ – Wales Arts Review

Sax Burglar Blues is available on the Seren website: £9.99

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy from us.

Four Books to Celebrate International Jazz Day

Today is International Jazz Day, a worldwide celebration of jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe. Here are four Seren titles you can celebrate with.

On the Beach with Chet Baker by Robert Seatter

“Presence and absence, some sort of together” (‘On the Beach with Chet Baker’). These are the three places that Robert Seatter’s second book of poems explores, with deftness, insight and artistry. They move from places of stasis and memory, through the uneasy proximities of love captured in the moody jazz trumpet of the title poem, and out to the uncharted spaces that loss and death can create.

“…emotional engagement in abundance”.  –Planet

 

Out of Nowhere by Roger Granelli

White British guitarist Frank Magnani arrives in fifties New York to break into the smoky world of jazz. Coming home from the austerity of post-war Europe to a land of plenty he finds there’s plenty to learn. His education is not confined to music alone, he also finds himself in a world where ego is everything, the musicians are black, and the drink and drugs are the fuel of creativity. Caught up in the violence of the city, Magnani flees on a journey through the southern provinces and his own mental state too. His personal odyssey is complete when he returns to the club scene of New York in a dramatic climax to his career and this atmospheric novel.

 

Sax Burglar Blues by Robert Walton

Sax Burglar Blues by Robert Walton is packed with memory, incident, observation, opinion, humour, outrage and elegy. Subjects include: woodlice, jazz, teachers, grandparents, a canary who runs for President, Sisley’s lovely painting of the Gower, the iconoclastic poet John Tripp, a night bus named after Dusty Springfield, a Dad who loves Cardiff City, the annoying closure of bookshops and much more.

​‘Dip into Walton’s jazzed-up version of the world and you will inevitably surface from the pages in a brighter hue.’ – Wales Arts Review

 

The Roots of Rock by Peter Finch

Peter Finch follows the trail of twentieth century popular music from a 1950s valve radio playing in a suburban Cardiff terrace to the reality of the music among the bars of Ireland, the skyscrapers of New York, the plains of Tennessee, the flatlands of Mississippi and the mountains of North Carolina. The Roots of Rock mixes musical autobiography with an exploration of the physical places from which this music comes. It is a demonstration of the power of music to create a world for the listener that is simultaneously of and beyond the place in which it is heard.

 

Find these and many more great titles on the Seren website. 

Don’t forget you can get 20% off when you sign up to be a member of our book club. 

Friday Poem – ‘Afon Rhymni’ by Robert Walton

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Afon Rhymni’ by Robert Walton which appears in his collection Sax Burglar Blues as well as our Poems from Cardiff pamphlet. 

The poems in Sax Burglar Blues range from vivid memories of childhood, such as ‘Twm Siôn Cati’ where a teacher ‘wiry-haired, fierce-eyed’ brings a fictional villain to life, banging out rhythms with her shoe on the floor of a Cardiff classroom, to memories of a rock-and-roll influenced youth on the back of the Dusty Springfield night bus, or an archetypal narrative of getting kicked out of a band just before they hit the big time. (‘Three Out of Four Original Members’).

 

 

Sax Burglar Blues is available on the Seren website: £9.99

Poems from Cardiff is available on the Seren website: £5

Did you know? All of our regional pamphlets come with an envelope and a post card making them the perfect gift – keep them for yourself or send to a loved one. View the full range here. 

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Friday Poem – ‘Reader’, Robert Walton

It’s a dark day – some might say black – and so our Friday Poem is one that celebrates the simple joys of reading and speech. We hope you find the time to experience them for yourself today.

‘Reader’ by Robert Walton is taken from his latest collection, Sax Burglar Blues. This jazzed-up book is ripe with complexity and wit, its subjects ranging from the insectoid ‘Man with a Double Bass on His Back’ to a canary with high political ambitions and a dock-dwelling crocodile. The poems demonstrate the artful, expansive range of this newly-revived author.

Sax Burglar Blues is half price until midnight this Sunday, as part of our celebration of books with black covers. We have a great selection of books included – have a browse on our Black Books page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sax Burglar Blues is available from the Seren website, half price until midnight, Sunday 25 November: £9.99  £4.99

See all the half price books in our Black Books Friday promotion here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday Poem – ‘White Horse in a Snowfield’, Robert Walton

Our Friday Poem this week is a coldly beautiful vision of winter, ‘White Horse in a Snowfield’, from Robert Walton’s Sax Burglar Blues.

The poems in Robert Walton’s Sax Burglar Blues range from vivid memories of childhood, to keen socio-political satire, and precise and elegant nature poems. Subjects include: woodlice, jazz, teachers, grandparents, a canary who runs for President, Sisley’s lovely painting of the Gower, the iconoclastic poet John Tripp, a night bus named after Dusty Springfield, the beauty of an Ash tree in spring,a Dad who loves Cardiff City, the austere beauty of a Bristol church, the annoying closure of bookshops and more.
Packed with memory, incident, observation, opinion, humour, outrage and elegy, there is much to devour and discuss here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sax Burglar Blues is available from the Seren website: £9.99

Join our free Book Club for 20% off every book you buy from us.

 

 

Friday Poem – ‘Sax Burglar Blues’, Robert Walton

This week our Friday Poem is the title number from Robert Walton’s brand new collection, Sax Burglar Blues.

Not so much a discovery as a re-discovery, Robert Walton’s new book of poems, Sax Burglar Blues, is his first full collection since winning a Welsh Arts Council Prize in the ’70s. After a working life as a teacher, Walton has resurrected his artistic gifts, and years of experience give his poetry both a spiky mien and an artful complexity. Subjects include: woodlice, jazz, teachers, grandparents, a canary who runs for President, Sisley’s lovely painting of the Gower, the iconoclastic poet John Tripp, a night bus named after Dusty Springfield, a Dad who loves Cardiff City, the annoying closure of bookshops and much more.
A guest at last night’s First Thursday event at the Chapter Arts Centre, Robert treated the audience to a live performance of ‘Sax Burglar Blues’, complete with saxophone solos. Scroll down to see for yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sax Burglar Blues is available from the Seren website: £9.99

Join our free Book Club for 20% off every book you buy from us.

 

 

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