Sophie McKeand is an award-winning poet from north Wales who was also, until recently, the Young People’s Laureate Wales. Her poetry weaves together language, sound, myth and field recordings in order to reflect a deep, spiritual and political connection to the land. Last year Sophie and her partner sold 95% of their belongings and moved into a van to embrace a European, nomadic, minimalist lifestyle. Her new work is inspired by this adventure. More at: www.sophiemckeand.com/outsider
‘Sophie McKeand’s Rebel Sun is no dying star, but a fiery tour de force, full of surreal and ingenious imagery.’ – Planet Magazine
More bio: Sophie won the Out Spoken Award for Innovation in Poetry in 2015 and her work has been published widely including Poetry Wales, Dark Mountain and The Lonely Crowd. She performs regularly across the UK (such as at the Wales Millennium Centre, Hay Festival and with Caught by the River) as has been on stage internationally at the Kolkata Literature Festival, India. Sophie has created two hand-stitched poetry pamphlets, Prophecy: conversations with my Self and Hanes; and collaborated on two touring arts projects: Metaforestry: storiau o’r Gogs, and DRKMTR which was also an album released on the Drum With Our Hands record label. She is a recipient of a Literature Wales writers bursary for 2017, and a Creative Wales award for 2018. The new poetry collection Rebel Sun is out with Parthian Books June 2017.
“Sophie McKeand joined us on stage at The Good Life Experience in 2016, where she captivated the audience with her profound, mythological, musical poems that not only crossed borders but seemed to dismantle them entirely, collapsing time and space and merging visions of the past with narratives of the personal.”
– Caught by the River