We've had some lovely features, reviews and feedback for our new batch of poetry titles.
First up, New Welsh Reader featured 3 of the 4 titles in their new issue, and seemed to like them...
'Rhys Owain Williams’ That Lone Ship is part of a handsome quartet of new poetry published by Parthian Books this autumn. […] In this collection, Williams explores the ghostly ripples that are cast out by everyday happenings, reflecting on and weaving together the disparate strands of experience that make up life. The poet explores the profound and the ridiculous, the private and the public, as sharp accounts of grief and illness sit beside light-hearted explorations of failed road trips and nervous sandwich eaters. […] There is much to recognise and enjoy in this collection, I even enjoyed the football poems!’ – Eleanor Howe
'Mari Ellis Dunning’s poetry collection, Salacia, is steeped in salt water and sea air. It’s a bracing and sensual exploration of a young woman’s life, filtered through the lenses of myth fairy tales, darkness and love. […] There’s fine technical control in the rhythm and music of these lines, and show that Mari Ellis Dunning is a poet to watch.' – Vicky MacKenzie
'Kate North’s second poetry collection is divided into three parts, entitled In, Through and Out. The Way Out offers us a way through the body […, she] reveals an interest in the physical experience of being in the world – what it means to wheel, leap, and rejoice in motion […] North is good at conjuring likeable images and metaphors.' – Suzannah V. Evans
Elsewhere, Harper’s Bazaar Weekend Editor Amy MacKelden has interviewed Rhian Elizabeth about Poetry and MS for the American website Shondaland: 'Multiple Sclerosis Won't Slow Us Down'.
While Mari Ellis Dunning has also been filmed for a video of her title poem 'Salacia' by Torchy Design which you can watch here:
Salacia poem by Mari Ellis from Torchy Design on Vimeo.
Congratulations, also to Natalie Ann Holborow and Susie Wild for both being longlisted in the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition 2018 this month by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
In the new issue of Planet Magazine, poet, editor and essayist Zoë Brigley reviews debut collections from Natalie Ann Holborow and Christina Thatcher:
'Natalie Ann Holborow’s And Suddenly You Find Yourself begins with ‘when’ and ends with ‘mam’. The ‘when’ represents intense or electrifying experiences in the world but by the end of the book the narrator has turned back to family. In the final poem, ‘Homecoming’, the ordinary becomes strange: full of panic attacks, gloves like ‘dead birds,’ a bag in the wind like ‘a smacked gull’ and a moon that ‘swings its white eye to the pavement’. Home and family, though difficult, are the remedy for the uncanniness. Often the journeys are surreal or beyond the ordinary world, like the stuff of modernized folktales. [...] The collection shows keen observation and great ability with metaphor and imagery.'
'Christina Thatcher’s More Than You Were presents a narrative about coming to terms with a difficult parent and learning to love oneself in spite of a lack within the family. The collection – the blurb tells us – revolves around the death of Thatcher’s father by drug overdose and poignantly seeks new ways to consider him. [...] While the poems record the worst excesses of the father, they are also commendable in their complexity, because they show that even if a parent is abusive, the child’s feelings are complicated by love, guilt, and grief.'
There are a couple more poetry gigs coming up before the end of the year. Do try to join us at one or more of them:
Then catch Rhys Owain Williams read at Milleu at the Flute & Tankard in Cardiff on Sat 17 Nov... alongside Rhys Milsom, Emily Vanderploeg, Catrin Kean and Tracey Rhys. Free entry, 7-11pm.
