Nationwide Poets

As the Nationwide adverts using poets continue to cause controversy I thought I’d repost this piece from earlier in the year first published on Sabotage Review.  Perhaps it was the Kolkata heat, or the second glass of red, or impatience to head out that forced a knee-jerk ‘I’ll do it’ to Claire Trévien’s FB post […]

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Poetry and the National Trust

Over the last week I’ve been fortunate enough to work with local young people at two National Trust properties: Tredegar House in Newport and Chirk Castle, on the north Wales border. Organised and facilitated by Literature Wales as part of the Young People’s Laureateship, each residency lasted two days and a lot of fun was […]

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Rebel Sun launch

Thanks to Siôn Tomos Owen for making this film of InsOmnia performed at the Rebel Sun launch in Wrexham last week. Also huge thanks to my publisher Parthian Books and to everybody who came and who has supported the book.  

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Poet on tour

Poet on tour. Gig dates. I’m so excited to be at Port Eliot Festival this summer on the Caught by the River stage but Cornwall is a reeeeeaallly long way from Wrexham so if anybody can help with additional gigs/readings/events for Rebel Sun while I’m in Cornwall or on the way home I’d be hugely […]

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Dydd Dylan / Dylan Day

Sunday 14th May was International Dylan Thomas Day with some wonderful events happening across Wales, the UK and beyond. I love Dylan Thomas’s lyrical approach to poetry (and life) and so being invited to be part of the celebrations was an honour. It can be too easy at times to get caught up in all […]

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Focus Wales Festival Review

You hustle Wrexham’s streets. Wrist encircled in colour you murmurate into the guitar strings of Heal The Last Stand as keyboards waltz with harmonies and your wine is the nectar of the gods. Folding into festival time you become moments twisting-then-unravelling across bars – into Spitbucket-sick-beats. The memory is a set-list creased in your back […]

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Project Hush

Recently I’ve been working on Project Hush, a new site specific theatre piece by Papertrail Theatre Company. Sited at the Rhydymwyn Valley Works (an old WWII chemical weapons factory), it tells the story of the war through the eyes of a (fictional) young woman who worked at the factory. This is the Research & Development […]

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Tree Charter Champions

It’s Easter Saturday and I’m on the train home from Cardiff where I’ve been performing alongside writers I have a lot of respect for including Clare e Potter, Dan Tsu and Philip Gross for All That The World Allows. The event, held in Bute Park, was part of a Tree Charter project organised in association […]

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Feeding the Soul

In the past week I’ve been to two diverse and inspiring poetry events. Perhaps diverse isn’t exactly the right word as from the surface they will have looked very similar: a room of around 30 people sitting with wine or tea, a guest poet, an open floor… but both offered exactly what I need right […]

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