Many thanks to Matthew MC Smith, and Black Bough Poetry, for my Best of the Net nomination from the Silver Branch Project. My poem 'With my last exhale on this Earth' comes from my debut pamphlet, which is on submission at the moment.
The cover has been released for the ‘International Anthology of Womxn’s Poetry’ titled ‘From the Ashes’ and it is gorgeous. I am so pleased to have two poems included: one within the Chapter ‘On knowing’, and one within ‘On how we love’. ‘Editors Amanda McLeod and Mela Blust have curated a collection of poems that tell the stories of the journey, trials, and triumphs of womxn. In this book, womxn share their most authentic, inner selves; their challenges and their victories; the words they wish they could say; the legacy they dream of for the womxn of the future.
The astonishingly creative K Weber has produced a wonderful poetry pamphlet of 21 poems using donated words, her explanation of the project is below:
Wales Arts Review Digithon Festival was a 3 day digital arts festival in late March, to raise emergency funds for artists and freelancers who have had their income impacted by Covid-19. The festival included literature, cinema, dance, gigs and art all experienced from the comfort of home.
Matthew Smith of Black Bough Poetry has curated 2 volumes of wonderful poems inspired by Robert Macfarlanes’s ‘Underland: A Deep Time Journey’.
Delighted to see my deep time poem ‘Precious’ in volume 2, under the section ‘Liquid walls’. Both volumes, which include fabulous artwork by Rebecca Wainwright, are available from Amazon, details can be found here.
I have now set up my Soundcloud page which can be accessed here. There are 3 poems up at the moment, including ‘Precious’ (featured in Black Bough Poetry’s ‘Deep Time’ anthology), ‘Arcade Hopping’ (featured in Wales Arts Review Digithon Festival), and ‘Map of Llandarcy 2008’ (featured in Wild Pressed Book ‘New Towns, an anthology’). Happy listening!
Black Bough Poetry are hosting a ‘Deep Time Day’ on twitter, and across facebook and instagram, to celebrate the publication of their Deep Time poetry anthologies, volumes 1 and 2. All the poems, musical compositions and artwork, by Rebecca Wainwright, were inspired by Robert Macfarlanes’ ‘Underland: A Deep Time Journey’. Contributors will be sharing their readings, photographs and poems.
And it’s me!
Back in March Cardiff City of Arcades launched a poetry competition, with the brief ‘a celebration of Cardiff’. The winning poem is displayed in one of the 7 historic Cardiff shopping arcades, alongside 6 commissioned Welsh poets. My poem is now up, in Morgan Arcade, and I’m so delighted it is alongside the lovely Mab Jones’ poem ‘Summer city’. Having grown up, and now living back in Cardiff it is a very special competition to win. Happy days.
Words for the Wild latest theme was the extraordinary Gilbert White. My poem ‘We understand, Gilbert White and I, while in Selborne architecting’ now features on their website here. This is such a special poem to me as 20 years ago or so I used to work in Hampshire, very close to Selborne (Gilbert White’s village) and spent most of some very happy years exploring the manmade and natural environment there. I was privileged to work for the delightful Richard Ashby at his architectural practice, just outside the village.
The wonderful Damien B. Donnelly has invited me onto his Eat The Storms Poetry Podcast (named after his poetry collection) to read a couple of my recent poems. The recording is complete and I’m just waiting to hear the broadcast date. Very excited!