Category Archives: Poetry

2 Poems in Deep Time Volume 2

Poetry, Portfolio, PortfolioPrint, Print

Matthew M.C. Smith is an adventurous, and apparently indefatigable, poet and poetry impresario. It may be his gift for collaboration which enables him to be so productive.

It’s so lovely to see my poem ‘Thaw’ here:  Deep Time Volume 2

This beautiful-to-handle, easy-on-the-eye, large-format book from Black Bough Poetry has been produced by a team and assembling a coherent team is a skill in itself. The members are:

” Welsh writer, Laura Wainwright, Louisiana’s former Laureate, Jack Bedell, and Aotearoa’s, Ankh Spice. The amazing illustrations are by Rebecca Wainwright, a Newport-born artist from Newport in Wales, now living in London. Music for this project is composed and curated by Brisbane-based Stuart Rawlinson.”

Artwork by Rebecca Wainwright

Deep Time volume 2, is Black Bough poetry’s second print anthology. It is dedicated to the writer Robert Macfarlane, who wrote award-winning non-fiction work, Underland (2019).

Continue reading 2 Poems in Deep Time Volume 2 →

Poem published: THERE AND HERE

Poetry, Portfolio, PortfolioPrint

THERE AND HERE

in a dream, the mirror of the Trinity

 

Our mirror holds your image in its square

and we have made the frame, a hand-breadth wide.

From the mid-point of the base springs a pair

of vibrant, scrolling fronds, one either side;

carved in relief, acanthus-leafed, baroque,

flexing like seaweed in a rising tide

they cross the top as though to interlock

but stop just short – potential growth implied.

The wood is light, clean-edged, northern and spare,

fit for an airy room with snow outside;

a place for thinking clearly in; somewhere

to find a balance, ponder, or decide.

 

Look. See your true self here, the self we share;

your I, You, Us.  Be its reflection there.

 

New City magazine, November 2020

 

SIAP Award from Arts Council N Ireland 2020/21

Poetry, PortfolioPrint

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland has given me a Support for the Individual Artist Award towards the drafting of a collection of poetry on the theme of SANCTUARY.

I am honoured to receive this funding and greatly appreciate the encouragement.

A Garw Valley cairn by Phil Cope

This collection  will not be written by me alone. The funding enables me both to involve four other poets who will each contribute a poem, written in collaboration with me, and also to benefit from mentoring by Glen Wilson, author of the poetry collection An Experience on the Tongue (Doire Press) and winner of the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2017.

Glen Wilson

Continue reading SIAP Award from Arts Council N Ireland 2020/21 →

My sonnet read on Poetry Pause

Listen, Media, Poetry, Portfolio, Writing

Poetry Pause is run by Emma Baines, Philippa Davies and Jean Riley near Narberth, west Wales. In Episode 7 the focus is on Carol Ann Duffy and has a powerful sonnet from Mab Jones and one from me.

Continue reading My sonnet read on Poetry Pause →

Wales in Places of Poetry Anthology

Blog, Poetry

Launching today.

Places of Poetry book launch

1. Jo Bell · Got
2. Alun Lewis · The Mountain over Aberdare (1942)
3. Philippa Davies · Aberfan: 9.10 a.m. 21/10/1966
4. Hilary Taylor · Coal Valley
5. Paul McGrane · Industrial Heritage
6. Maureen Fenton · Views from Newport Wetlands
7. Laura Wainwright · Is Coed
8. Peter Gaskell · Thoughts on a King’s Idyll in City of the Legion (Caerleon)
9. Jeremy Dixon · Gentlemen
10. Fawzia Muradali Kane · Ogmore
11. Jim Young · Worm’s Head (Pen Pyrod)
12. James Roberts · At Carreg Frân
13. Erika Guttmann-Bond · Brenin y Brenhinoedd
14. Henry Vaughan · The Water-fall (1655)
15. Kathy Miles · Lithic
16. Alwyn Marriage · Across the Mountain
17. Freddie Jones · Winter in Snowdonia
18. Gillian Clarke · Caernarfon
19. Ness Owen · Mamiaith (Mother Tongue)
20. Eabhan Ní Shuileabháin · Growing Up
21. Joanna Ingham · Choughs
22. Anne Phillips · Fog in Llanbadrig
23. Gerard Manley Hopkins · In the Valley of the Elwy (1874–77)
24. Steven Thomas-Spires · Border Language (Iaith Ffin)

4 Poems in The Blue Nib

Online, Poetry, Portfolio

I’m delighted to have 4 poems published in the Abhaile section – ‘poetry from the home place’ – of The Blue Nib.

https://thebluenib.com/4-poems-by-angela-graham/

Tracy Gaughan selects poetry from established and emerging writers from Ireland and the UK.

One of the poems is from the book I’m currently writing on Place and Displacement.

Tracy comments: ‘Angela Graham’s imaginative eloquence of language embodies an ‘at-homeness’ in both the universal and the particular’.

Abhaile is a great means of sampling work from a range of poets. I found among them Hugh McMillan and Caroline Johnson. I’ll give them a wave over there in Scotland. I’m looking forward to my time off next week when I can read everyone’s work.

Poem in Letters With Wings fund-raising Poetry Reading

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On May 26th Letters With Wings ran an online poetry reading to raise funds to send letters to unjustly imprisoned artists and writers.

Raising funds to ensure the letters are sent: Click to contribute

Poets taking part: Celia de Fréine, Catherine Dunne,  Lia Mills, Bernadette Gallagher, Moyra Donaldson, Deirdre Cartmill , Denis Stokes, Therese Kieran, Rafael Mendes, Polina Cosgrave, Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan, Alessandra Trevisan, Natasha Remoundou, Aisling Walsh, Gráinne Tobin, Simone Theiss , Cornelia Rohr and myself.

https://www.facebook.com/WingsLetters/posts/141363680866966

I contributed a poem to the Open Mic session which I wrote for Nedim Türfent. He has been in prison in Turkey for more than 1500 days.

In the event a poem by Nedim, ‘Child, Don’t You Know?’ was read in Kurdish.
Letters with Wings later said,
“We are very pleased to let you all know that Cornelia Rohr, one of our readers on the 26th, was in contact with Nedim Türfent’s sister and sent the video of our live event. She phoned later with Nedim and told him about it. He was very happy and sends us many kind regards.”
Extract from the translation into French:
Toi, enfant rebelle
enfant indomptable, irréductible !
toi, enfant
si ton dessein est d’avorter mon rêve
en aucun cas
je ne ferais retour de mes songes, jamais
Nedim Türfent • Child, don't you know? | KEDISTAN

Le Ortique – launches podcasts with my translation of Notturno n.4 by Livia De Stefani

Blog, Listen, Poetry

Livia De Stefani (1913 – 1991)

In this recording, Nandi Jola reads my translation of Notturno n. 4 for the Le Ortique project, a group of women authors committed to discovering forgotten women artists.

For more of De Stefani’s poems, see:

da Poesie in diesis di Livia De Stefani (ita/eng)

 An online event on 7th July 6.30 – 8.30pm invites contributions of work by female artists whose work deserves greater recognition Le Ortique Open Mic

I am very much enjoying my encounter with the work of this passionate, uncompromising poet, Livia De Stefani.

Notturno n. 4

Non morirò. Vivo ancora. Ancora di te
del tuo profondo sonno fra le braccia dell’altra.
Ti odio. Nell’odio io incendio foreste
più fonde di quelle d’amore.
Al lume di fiamme vermiglie m’inoltro
nel fuoco vestita dei miei capelli.
Voluttà rinnovate, interminabili saziano
le affamate notti, alzano maree
fra le sponde dei giorni.
Non muoio. T’inseguo ti trovo ti schiaccio
e mi succhio il tuo sangue e lo sputo.
È amaro il tuo sangue, dà sete, dà sete.

******

Die – I will not. I live on still. Still on you
on your deep sleep in the arms of that other woman.
I loathe you. In loathing I set ablaze forests
deeper than those of love.
By the gleam of vermilion flames I give myself
to the fire wearing only my hair.
Endless voluptuous pleasures, tasted again, again, sate
the famished nights, flood tides
between the shores of the days.
Dying – I am not. You – I follow you find you crush you
suck up your blood – spit it out.
Bitter, your blood – makes me thirst, thirst.

translated by © Angela Graham 

podcast version by © Nandi Jola (South African born poet and writer based in Ireland) .

For a discussion of Livia De Stefani’s poetry:

Livia De Stefani: poesia per ritornare (alla poesia) / Livia De Stefani: poetry to come back (to poetry)