Y bardd gafodd ei sbarduno gan y Sîn Roc Gymraeg “Roedd e’n creu ymwybyddiaeth bod sawl math o Gymreictod, a bod dim rhaid i chi fod yn hollol bur, bod dim rhaid i chi fod yn berchen ar garafán” NON TUDUR. Linc GOLWG fyma- here
Listening to Republic Writing Republic I found that post punk music of the 80s and 90s became key in an attempt to articulate a relationship between community, language and culture. Given the current preponderance of School Disco compilations, initially it might seem that retreating to the music of the 80s and 90s is another variant in communal nostalgia. This is not the intention of Republic. I believe that music carries an energy for future action and desire for change. What you learn over the years changes how you listen to those important early albums. Context shifts meaning. Republic is an anti-memoir, it came from a need to transcribe the voices of a community… Read More →
I’ve been writing on Syliva Plath’s engagement witn BBC Radio as a writer and poet – August 19th 2022 marked the 60th anniversary of the broadcast of Plath’s Three Women on the Third Programme . Produced by Douglas Cleverdon this was Plath’s only commisioned work for the BBC. Set on a materinty ward it follows the late pregnancies and birthing experiences of three unnamed patients. It is a remarkable work for its time addressing issues about consent, medical intervention, gynaecological rights, miscarriage and abortion. The research has been inclluded as an essay “Sylvia Plath’s Three Women: Producing a Poetics of Listening at the BBC” in this insghtful book of essays. The… Read More →
Yn ddiochgar ofnadwy i Sioned Rowlands ac O’r Pedwar Gwynt wnath roi sbardun i sgwennu yn y man cynta; Thanks to Sioned Rowlands and O’r Pedwar Gwynt who asked (original in Welsh https://pedwargwynt.cymru – subscription) It is no secret that Datblygu first found their followers outside of Wales. As a teenager I attended gigs in remote country hotels where many of the Welsh speaking audience did not “get” Datblygu. The adulation of Dave in Wales has been very much a belated affair. I am certain David R . Edwards would curl his lips with bemusement at any overt hagiography. Unlike many writing eulogies for David R. Edwards, I never met… Read More →
Issue 25 Blackbox Manifold dedicated to Welsh Innovative Poetry curated by John Goodby Goodby writes: “This is a selection of recent work by eighteen poets who were born and / or brought up in Wales, or who are from elsewhere but work and write in Wales, or who have other meaningful ties to the country. Most of it was written in the last twelve months or so and therefore dates from the fraught countdown to Brexit, and a good deal of it was written during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, directly or indirectly, it often reflects a strange and changeful period. Some of the poetry has been published before, but… Read More →
New Anthology of Surrealist Poems Imagined Invited (Hafan Books, 2020) edited by Peter Greenslade and original artwork by Mark Sanders Sometime last year the kind David Greenslade sent our an invitation to some poets Surreal Poetry Game “This Game has rules (repeat . . . r.u.l.e.s. draconian/brutal) You are invited to write a poem meditating on the parlour game of Imaginary Dinner Guests (this is the game where we ask, “Who would you invite if you could invite anyone from time and space?”) The Rules Please compose a poem mentioning: between three to five guests (no more than five) at least one of the guests must have a connection with Wales at least… Read More →
This article- prose document has been published in Welsh in O’r Pedwar Gwynt https://pedwargwynt.cymru (Diolch mawr i Sioned Rowlands) In the Californian sky you notice a web of lines between the telegraph poles. A cat cradle of connections. The loops of electricity create heavy black threads in air. Your eye catches the odd yellow plastic ribbon tied around a pole’s waist. It is 1991 and these are markers of the first Iraq war. Berkeley has not always been so hospitable to its returning veterans. The following spring there will be a curfew in this city. Rodney King’s savage beating by the LAPD, and the acquittal of the police… Read More →
REVIEW FOR POLLARD FIRST VOLUME PRIZE 2020 – JUDGING PANEL Pollard Prize Announcement 21st April, 2020 Isabelle Galleymore’s stunning first volume Significant Other, describes encounters between the natural world and human consciousness. The volume’s spare, if not condensed lyrics, represent minute acts of perception. Galleymore’s tightly-wrought poems document our world during a time of ecological crisis; these poems represent the Anthropocene. Using the lyric form as a recording of precise detail and as an anatomy of emotion, Galleymore creates a compendium of our creature world while narrating stories of human love lost. The intertwining of personal narratives with a documenting of natural world, complicates the relationship between… Read More →
Y Gwyliwr Picsileiddir mil o fylchau lle cwyd wynebau dan y don Dringa haul dros fryniau at groesbren ddu sy’n sgleinio dy lygaid nôl mewn iddi, gan anadlu trefi, pentrefi, dinasoedd; galar a lynir â sment ar wal. Pethau plufiog wedi’u gosod mewn corneli yn syllu nôl arnom. _____ Mae dy gerddi’n adrodd am dy gariad at y lonydd hyn: briallu, mieri, cen, mwsog, bedw’n prifio. Wrth gerdded i’r ysgol, carchar i grwt â phennau gliniau du fe gnoaist ar bensil nes i’r dannedd gwrdd â’r canol. Yna daeth rhywbeth i fritho’i uchelgais: cyfryngu’r natur mewnol drwy emyn a sgrifennwyd … Read More →
Watchkeeper for Gwilym Williams Pixels break a thousand spaces where floating faces rise. Sun clambers over hills to a black cross. That shines your eyes back into it, breathing in villages, towns, cities mourning cemented onto walls. Plumed objects placed in corners looking back at us. _____ Your poems tell me how you loved these lanes: Primroses, brambles, lichen, moss, birches thickening. Walking to school, a prison to a small boy with dirty knees you chewed a pencil until teeth touched lead. Then something flecked its ambition: An inscape mediated the inscribed hymn of fire, hearth, light. Patterns… Read More →