Kate North RSS

Our four poetry titles, released as a series in October 2018, have all been favourably reviewed by Gareth Leaman in the latest issue of Poetry Wales.  'The most emotively immediate of the four, Mari Ellis Dunning's Salacia brings to life a world in which Welsh women do not write their own stories, but rather have stories written upon them. We encounter rarely heard voices from the history and mythos of Wales and beyond, with an intense focus on the struggle of ensuring these voices ever reach an audience, achieved through an acute sense of the literal physical pressures of misogynistic...

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...

My daughter, Scout, is 13 years old on Sunday. And no one is more amazed than me that I managed to get her to this age physically, if not mentally, unscathed.

It’s not the thing to say, I know, but I'm going to say it anyway – I don’t always enjoy being a mother.

I didn't see the fun in changing nappies. Those first 3 years of not sleeping weren't the best years of my life, to be honest. And her tantrums around supermarkets made me want to put her in someone else’s trolley and hope they’d scan her with the rest of their shopping and take her home.

I hated making small talk in the playground with other mothers. I resented having to cut packed lunch sandwiches in a certain, special way or face World War 3.

I don't enjoy helping out with homework, attempting to solve maths equations that I had no chance of solving when I, myself, was in school, equations that I’ve got even less of a chance of solving now.

I dread parents’ evening, having to brush my hair and put on the only smart jacket I have and act all sensible. I don’t enjoy the constant drama, stress and worry that comes with a teenage girl.

But apart from all of that, being a mother is alright.

I’d like to think that, despite the list of things she could write that she has had to put up with because of me for the past 13 years, Scout thinks I’m alright, too.

I asked my favourite MILFS their opinions on being mothers.

Over and out. X