Judge Rhiannon Hooson has chosen Elizabeth Wilson Davies’s poem ‘Heartland’ as the winner of this year’s poetry competition. My poem, ‘After Iconoclasm: The Jesse Tree Window’ and 19 other poems will be published in the Festival Anthology by Parthian Books.
Continue reading Finalist in PENfro Book Festival Poetry Competition
My consideration of Gwyneth Lewis’s collection of poetry, ‘Treiglo’ for the Cardiff Review. A first-rate book in content and also in design,achieving a striking coherence in all respects. Continue reading My review of ‘Treiglo’ for Cardiff Review
I’m delighted that my short story ‘The Bangle’ is on the shortlist for the Write By The Sea Festival Competition.
I had three stories shortlisted for this last year. I messed up the payment process and ended up with 3 entries. The administrator for the Festival was impressively patient with my ham-fistedness and when I saw that all three stories had made the shortlist I was initially convinced that it was because I had somehow made another mistake!
As I like the sea theme, and since the Festival seems to be such a properly human enterprise, making allowances for the likes of hames-makers such as mysef, I wrote one for this year’s round. Hence my especial delight at making the shortlist again.
I very much enjoyed writing the story.
The Festival programme looks really good, with writers such as Paula Meehan, Kit de Waal and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne.
It was an inspiring theme from Matthew C. Smith, editor – the 50th anniversary of the Moon Landing to be dealt with in no more than 10 lines in an imagistic style. I wrote Moon, Landing from the perspective of the moon coming to earth rather than humans going to the moon. See Broadside 5. Black Bough Poems
On the same theme I also wrote a poem in Ulster Scots which will be in #9 of The Bangor Literary Journal, launching August 18th and First Death of The Troubles, occurred 14th July 1969 about the context of the Moon Mission in Northern Ireland – this is on my website.
I’m delighted to have a poem in Issue 9 of The Bangor Literary Journal, launching as part of the Open House Festival 1pm Sunday 18th August, Bangor. Especially pleased that the poem, Re-entry, Ulster is in Ulster Scots, inspired by the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing.
This is a week of momentous anniversaries, of the Moon Landing and also of a significant escalation of unrest in Northern Ireland, including two deaths in controversial circumstances.
The call-out for poetry for Issue 2 of Black Bough Poetry, for Imagist poems on the theme of the Apollo mission, prompted me to write three poems (one in Ulster Scots). One of these, ‘Moon, Landing’, is in the issue and another is here below. I wanted to consider the context in which I experienced the Moon Landing, and anniversaries which make us reflect on progress and also how we deal with memories, and with events, resolved or unresolved. Continue reading A Telling Week: 50 Years On
I am so thrilled that the poet, Glen Wilson has chosen to mentor me for a year. The aim is to compile a collection.
Glen’s collection An Experience on the Tongue has just come out from Doire Press. He won the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing in 2017.
This amazingly generous initiative was sparked by Matthew C. Smith of Black Bough Poetry.
I’m particularly pleased that it is a poet from Northern Ireland and a poet from Wales who have been instrumental in giving me this wonderful gift as I have a project on Writing in Wales and Northern Ireland with the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations at the University of South Wales.
The amazing cake made for the launch of The Ogham Stone, 2019. My poem ‘Two Autumns’ is included in this year’s edition.
On June 9th, at the Belfast Book Festival, I had the great pleasure of reading at the Northern Irish launch of The North issue 61, devoted to contemporary Irish poets. It was edited by Nessa O’Mahony and Jane Clarke. I read my poem A Northern Irish Wife to a Northern Irish Catholic Priest. Continue reading Reading at the Belfast Book Festival
March 18th 2019 is the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Welsh novelist, Menna Gallie. She wrote one of the very first novels to engage with the Troubles: You’re Welcome To Ulster.
Set in 1969, it was published by Victor Gollancz in 1970. It is a fascinating double perspective on political agitation in both Wales and Northern Ireland written by a Welsh-speaker who had swiftly got under the skin of Northern Irish society.
Honno Press has re-issued four of Gallie’s novels and this month there is a 25% reduction on their price , using the code mg100.