We are pleased to announce the dates for the UK book launch tour of Rebel Sun, the new poetry collection from award-winning poet and performer Sophie McKeand taking in a plethora of festivals, venues, workshops, readings and more across the summer and autumn. The official launch will be held at Hay Festival on 31 May 2017 as part of our #IndiaWales project The Valley, The City, The Village.
‘Rebel Sun is a compelling, shapeshifting exploration of land and myth, the deep roots of our history, our relationship to nature and to ourselves, merging visions of the past with narratives of the close-up and personal. To hear Sophie McKeand’s work aloud is to be captivated, stunned; on the page the poems are no less profound. This is mythological, musical poetry that not only crosses borders but seems to dismantle them entirely, collapsing time and space, transfiguring and prefiguring the world we live in.’ – Martha Sprackland.
Young People’s Laureate Wales April 2016 - 2018
Winner of the Out Spoken award for Innovation in Poetry 2015
Longlisted, Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition 2014
Pre-order a signed hardback copy of Rebel Sun for £10 including free P&P
'A firecracker of a collection.’ – Kaite O’Reilly
‘Sophie McKeand is a force. Her “heart is anchored” in the nature and topography of north Wales.’ – Chris Kinsey
‘…these are breathing, shape-shifting poems… image after image drawing the reader closer to understanding about the world at large and in micro…’ – clare e. potter
Sophie McKeand’s first full-length poetry collection speaks of socialism and starlings, and sings the praise of the Rebel Sun who recreates the world every day so that at any time we can cast off the past and do the same. These poems dream of the fluidity and politics, of time and place, map mountain and mind. They talk of knitting together people and communities. But after this comes the slow unravelling – the compulsion to let go, transform and shape-shift; slowly unwind roots from the earth; grow fin and feather; know water and sky.
Sophie recently reviewed music festival Focus Wales 2017 for Wales Arts Review
Read Sophie's poem 'the disappearing (a manifesto)' from Rebel Sun on her website
Sophie McKeand is an award-winning, self-employed poet from north Wales with poetry published in various magazines such as Poetry Wales, Tears in the Fence, The Lonely Crowd and Bare Fiction. She has performed at Green Man, Wilderness, Uncivilsation, Dinefwr and Focus Wales festivals as well as on the Caught by the River stage at The Good Life. Blogger at Huffington Post and new contributor at Wales Arts Review as well as being creative associate at Get The Chance. McKeand currently focuses on bringing poetry to various community groups across Wales through working with organisations such as Literature Wales, National Theatre Wales, Arts Council Wales, Age Cymru and Barnardos.
