Category Archives: Portfolio

STAR: poems for the Christmas Season

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At the end of the summer, a book for the depths of winter. Welsh independent, Culture & Democracy Press, published the collection on 22nd August.

Here are 32 poems with 15 wonderful linocuts by Martin Erspamer.

Once I started to write about Christmas I couldn’t stop. Far from being a schmaltz fest, I find Christmas to be pulsing with clear-eyed realism. It’s a story of fragility amidst tough circumstances; of people on the edges being brought right into the heart of things; of political ruthlessness and high-minded, clumsy idealism; of flight and terror, as well as peace and joy.

The Three Kings arrive in glamour but they depart in fear and secrecy. Who was waiting for their return, I wondered? Their wives, perhaps. I’ve discovered for these women a presence and charted their influence. The Three Kings and Three Queens are at the heart of the book. We meet them having travelled through the bright lights of the season and we go on into ‘the dark hinterland of Christmas’ of treachery and exile, but hope has survived in the form of a child.

The cover image is Martin Erspamer’s take on a carving I love. In the 12th century, the mason/architect of Autun Cathedral, known as Gislebertus, took the capitals of some of the pillars supporting the Cathedral roof as opportunities to explore the Christmas story (and other biblicial tales). In his ‘The Awakening of the Magi’ Gislebertus imagined a point further back than the gospels record, the moment before the moment when for the very first time one of the Three Kings saw the star that would lead them to Bethlehem.

I regret I have no copyright details for this image

With wonderful ingenuity, he depicts the three kings in bed, asleep while the star blazes outside. Except that one king has responded to the prodding finger of an angel. He has opened one eye but not yet turned to look.

Gislebertus exploits here the extraordinarily fertile moment before the key action begins. The very threshold of the point of change. In Martin Erspamer’s beautiful linocut I found the ideal cover for this collection.

ISBN 978-1-0686946-0-8 • 22 August 2024 • Pback • Poetry • £10.00

Available from

Books Council Wales https://www.gwales.com/bibliographic/?isbn=9781068694608&tsid=2

Gardners, for booksellers. Good bookshops. Amazon.

For review copies, features, events & interviews please contact:

PHIL COPE • 01656 663018 • [email protected]

TRIO Uganda Poetry Competition

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The TRIO International Poetry Competition is open until 31st October.  I have the happy task of judging the entries.

Last year’ s competition was judged by Mike Jenkins, a former editor of Poetry Wales, a winner of Wales Book of the Year and currently co-editor of Red Poets. First Prize was won by Jim Green; Second Prize went to Jenny Mitchell and Third to Glen Wilson. The winning poems can be read here.

All entry fees will be used to purchase books and equipment for the first school to be built on Uganda’s Agaria Island. Pictured is Lucy who is a Primary 2 pupil at Agaria Island’s provisional school, working from temporary premises until the new school is completed. Lucy writes poetry and stories… when she has pens and pencils. (Image used with permission).

 The competition is organised by Jon Sait who won the Poetry Society’s 2004 National Poetry Competition with his poem ‘Homeland’. Read his poem here. Jon is Treasurer and UK Co-ordinator of the volunteer-led charity, Trio Uganda.

Entry details https://www.triouganda.org/poetry-competition

CLOSING DATE 31ST OCTOBER 2024

Shipyard Writers Competition win

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I’m delighted to win second prize in Yellow House Publishing’s Shipyard Writers competition.

First prize was won by David Butler for his short story, ‘White Spirits’ and third prize by Lucia Kenny for her poem, ‘Building Walls’.

https://www.yellowhousepublishing.com/news/shipyard-writers-competition-2024

My poem is in Ulster-Scots with an English translation and is prompted by the 9th-century Irish poem, ‘Int en bec’, known in English as ‘The Blackbird of Loch Lene’ and the paraphrase of it in Ulster-Scots by John Erskine. I was intrigued to see the Irish rendered into contemporary Ulster-Scots and that got me thinking about some themes that last across the centuries and about the way meaning swims between languages.

I’ve written previously about this Irish poem here https://angelagraham.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=3171&action=edit and I’ve used its wonderful Irish metre, ‘snámh súad’, which the late Ciaran Carson rendered as ‘poetic floating’, in the ENVOI of my poem in The Interpreter’s House: https://angelagraham.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=4482&action=edit

(and temporarily lost the ability to embed links properly! Sorry, folks.)

The work will appear in New Isles Press journal issue 3.

There is an event in Belfast’s Eastside Arts Festival on 25th July https://www.glistrr.com/events/e/belfast-literary-summer-yard-sessions-2024-3507-7

‘Following last year’s festival success, the Thomas Carnduff Appreciation Society offers its second literary Summer Yard Session. This year’s theme is Borders, Boundaries and Barriers.’

‘The session features a panel of renowned authors, chaired by Dr. Connal Parr and featuring Rosemary Jenkinson, Wendy Erskine, Tony Black, Heather Currie and Eddie Currie, with Stephen Knox as MC. Together they will celebrate the rich literature and language traditions of Northern Ireland and across our shared Isles.’

Belfast Launch of Washing Windows IV- Irish Women Write Poetry

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A stimulating evening at the Irish Secretariat, Belfast to launch Washing Women IV – Irish Women Write Poetry, Arlen House’s latest anthology.

A packed room heard 30 poets read their poem from this book which shot to number 2 in the Nielsen Non-fiction ratings as soon as it was published.

Washing Windows IV: Irish Women Write Poetry
with Csilla Toldy

My sonnet, DO Unto Others is mentioned in co-editor Nuala O’Connor’s introduction in which she asserts the truth-telling mission of poetry:

“The poets in this volume are fearless in this project … These are poems where … one courageous, newly-enlightened poet – Angela Graham – proclaims: ‘I am my Gorgon. I must turn to meet my stare …'”

with Mary Shannon

AGM of Glens and Dalriada U3A

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I was delighted to be invited as guest speaker to outline my work as a writer of short stories and poetry . The audience in Ballycastle’s Sheskburn Hall was very welcoming and I appreciated the opportunity to offer my books for sale afterwards. A sell-out!

It was Patrick O’Donnell’s last session as Chairman and as his final official duty in that role he presented me with a generous token of thanks.

He thanked the new chairman, Mark Gavin for his success in securing major sponsorship from the Awards For All programme which is funding an expansion of services for this thriving U3A branch.

Out Of The Silence TV documentary

Poetry, PortfolioTelevision, Television

It was a great pleasure to be interviewed by writer, Anne McMaster for DoubleBand Films’ hour-long documentary ‘Out Of The Silence’, directed by Jane Magowan and produced by Jonathan Golden. It explores women writing today, and in the past, in Ulster-Scots.

Anne and the crew came recorded me at home in Ballycastle where I delivered my poem, ‘A Heerd Tha Sodjer On Tha Radio’. This poem originated in my kitchen and is set there so what better place to do it?

Wendy Erskine, Dawn Watson and Jan Carson also feature in the documentary. The work of the late Frances Molloy was a discovery for me, prompted by the recording. Her novel, ‘No Mate For The Magpie’ (1985) and short story collection, ‘Women Are The Scourge Of The Earth’ (1989) are memorable, visceral and inventive. As was that of the acerbic, eighteenth-century writer, Olivia Elder.

Anne McMaster’s latest book, ‘Martha And The Vardo’ is out recently. Available from [email protected].

Poems for Wales PENCymru 10th anniversary

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During Wales in London Week, around St David’s Day, there’s a celebration of the significant contribution to London of Welsh culture. On February 29th WalesPENCymru held a poetry reading and music event at The Poetry Society’s Poetry Cafe to mark the organisation’s thenth anniversary. The theme was ‘Wales as a Multilingual Country’.

The Wales branch of PEN is one of the largest in terms of membership. It is affiliated to PEN International.

PEN promotes literature and defends freedom of expression. It campaigns on behalf of writers around the world who are persecuted, imprisoned, harassed and attacked for what they have written. It has committees representing writers in prison, translation and linguistic rights, women writers and a peace committee.

A glance at WalesPENCymru’s website shows the range of events and campaigns that run throughout the year http://walespencymru.org/ They are all designed to support the freedom to speak of writers and journalists worldwide and also in Wales and the UK.

I was invited to read my poem, ‘Colony’ which is about what happens to language in the process of colonisation and I wrote a new poem for the event, ‘Wales/Cymru’.

At the London event we listened to the National Poet of Wales, Hanan Issa (below). And to Wales PEN Cymru’s president, the renowned Welsh poet, Menna Elfyn.

The Turkish writer Mehmet Ali Alabora spoke about living in Wales and the importance of the Welsh language.

The Kurdish musician, Ali Zeynel (below) played and sang in his minority language and then gave us the Welsh folksong, ‘Dacw ‘nghariad i lawr yn y berllan’.

photos and video by Dominic Williams of https://write4word.org/write4word

Watch the event on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsioNQ3TddM

In my collection, Sanctuary https://www.serenbooks.com/book/sanctuary-there-must-be-somewhere/ I have a poem written for Letter With Wings, an Irish PEN campaign for the release of the unjustly imprisoned jounalist, Nedim Turfent. Thankfully he was released in Novemeber 2022, after 6 years in prison.