Poems RSS

This week we're talking all things poetry in the lead up to #NationalPoetryDay this Thursday on the 6th of October. We are delighted that Pearl & Bone by the wonderful Mari Ellis Dunning has been met with some great reviews since its launch last Saturday. 'This is a brave, complex, powerful, angry, and loving book, full of poems that argue, discuss, share, and reject the abuse of power that women and children are constant victims of' - Tears in the Fence Dunning's second full poetry collection explores themes of motherhood and femininity using her own intimate moments of becoming a mother during a global pandemic...

Sydney Whiteside, for the Wales Arts Review, takes an indepth look at the writings of Christina Thatcher (How to Carry Fire) and Zoë Brigley (Notes from a Swing State), finding cultural depths and resonances as an American living in Wales.

'Both Christina Thatcher’s How to Carry Fire and Zoë Brigley’s Notes from a Swing State are born of trans-Atlantic origins. Writing between Wales and America, though in opposite directions, Thatcher and Brigley speak of both countries with spellbinding precision and depth. As someone inhabiting a similar position, reading these works was both a joy and an inspiration.'

You can read the full article here.

And both books are available to buy on our website - link here.

Sophie McKeand, whose poetry collection Rebel Sun was published by Parthian in 2017 to great critical acclaim ('Sophie McKeand's Rebel Sun is no dying star, but a fiery tour de force, full of surreal and ingenious imagery.' – Planet) has taken to Instagram TV to perform her poems.

You can watch them here.

And you can order the collection here.

So many lovely comments have been flooding in for Christina Thatcher's second poetry collection 'How to Carry Fire' over the weekend. Look at this blazing spread in the Western Mail Weekend supplement on Saturday by Jenny White. ‘The resulting work cements Thatcher’s position as a distinctive, powerful and unerring authentic new poetic voice - a stall she first set out with More Than You Were, her 2017 debut collection which explored the legacy of her father’s addiction and death. 'While many of her poems deal with gritty topics, they are also strikingly beautiful in the purity of the love they convey. There...

by Sydney Whiteside

The second day of the 2020 Seren Cardiff Poetry Festival opened on Saturday morning with the New Poetry Showcase, a spectacle of new poetry from authors with recently published or forthcoming collections. Featuring five writers, both debut poets and those on their second or third collection, the showcase was a brilliant start to a dazzling Saturday of poetry in Cardiff’s Temple of Peace.

Cardiff poet Roberto Pastore was the first to read, sharing poems from his new collection Hey Bert, out now with Parthian. Pastore’s poems burst with energy and humour, highlighting the beauty in the everyday and reminding us of our ‘all too humanness’. Among the poems read was ‘Heart Poem’, a beautiful look into memory and the often impossible expectations we place on ourselves.

Kittie Belltree, who was born in south London and now lives in Wales, followed with readings from her debut collection Sliced Tongue and Pearl Cufflinks, also out now with Parthian. Her poems explore domestic trauma, history, and mother-daughter relationships with paralyzing detail and wit. Belltree closed her reading with ‘Magician’s Daughter’, a beautifully haunting piece about sexual abuse that makes whimsical diction dangerous and twists words into unexpected and wonderful combinations.