Tagged with: poetry
Posts (41)
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National Poet's tour diary: Carmarthen
Gillian Clarke
Friday 26 November Snow! Just a veil in Ceredigion as we set off for Carmarthen, a completely white world as I write at Blaen Cwrt on Friday morning. Serious snow, crisp and deep and even. Though only November, it's very cold. For me and Menna Elfyn, sharing the stage tonight, it's just 10...
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National Poet's tour diary: Kerala, India
Gillian Clarke
Between reading with Paul Henry at the Wyeside, Builth, and my gig with Menna Elfyn at Trinity, Carmarthen next week, I fly to India for the Hay Kerala Festival. We pass over Mosul, Baghdad, Basra. I disobey the air hostess and lift my blind. I want to see the world, snow-capped mountains sout...
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Welsh voices at Hay Festival in Kerala, India
Laura Chamberlain
This weekend some of Wales' most prominent poetic voices can be heard at a literary festival a little further afield, as India hosts the first Hay Festival Kerala. National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke plus Menna Elfyn and Paul Henry will take part in the festival, which is being held at the K...
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Theatr Clwyd hosts theAbsurd Festival
Laura Chamberlain
A short while ago, resident 成人论坛 Wales Music blogger Adam Walton was raving about the theAbsurd Festival, which is being held at Clwyd Theatr Cymru. As a Mold native, Adam's normal exuberance for new Welsh music seems to have magnified as he's able to celebrate a festival full of it in his former...
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National Poet's tour diary: Betws-y-Coed, Builth Wells
Gillian Clarke
A poet's life is never dull. Tuesday 19th October and I'll be in Betws-y-Coed with Ifor ap Glyn. He is a good poet, and very entertaining - but will anybody come to the gig? The drive north from Ceredigion is glorious. Vast rain-clouds peel off the Irish Sea, sweeping east and leaving a clear blue sky. From the moment we turn inland at Aberystwyth, the mountains are red with bracken, trees turning gold, with the most intense rainbow I ever remember over the slate grey town of Blaenau Ffestiniog. The room in the Gwydyr Hotel awaits. Dwynwen from Llanrwst sets out her stall of books for sale, the Academi banner is hung. We talk over high tea, egg and chips and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. The usual early birds don't arrive. Fearing the worst, Ifor and I prepare for a change of plan. We abandon the lectern, draw comfortable chairs close, and wait. In the event we're not a crowd but an intimate group, which has its own charm. Ifor and I read a few poems a time, responding to each other, matching poem to poem. He has prepared translations to hand to the audience, and reads in Welsh and in English, weaving between the two as nimbly as a sheepdog. One curious fact: I am exhausted! It takes far more energy to communicate poetry to a few in a big room than to light the spark with a full house of adults, or an audience of 2000 teenagers. Thursday 21st October - off to Builth Wells to read at the Wyeside Centre with Paul Henry. I am as confident in Paul as I was in Ifor, but success lies with the audience. They can make or break the magic, so I'm nervous. Again, the drive is beautiful, 60 miles through red mountains even rosier in the light of a low sun, with sudden visions of yellow - a golden tree, a sunlit slope. Is there a lovelier season to travel through Wales? I need not have worried. It turns out to be a great evening. Builth is a town with a heart, a feeling of community, and the Royal Welsh has established a habit of gathering. In the excellent High School poetry is valued in English and in Welsh. The venue is warm, arty, purposeful, and as we arrive people are gathering in the bar. The little theatre space is comfortably full. People have come from Hereford, Presteigne, Cardiff. Paul is funny, warm, and moving too, and the lovely audience makes the magic happen. Phew! What a relief! There's a long and winding road to go before Christmas. Gillian Clarke National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke is blogging for the 成人论坛 during her seven-date poetry tour of Wales, which runs until 10 December 2010. For more information on the National Poet's tour of Wales visit the Academi website.
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National Poet's tour diary: Abergavenny, Skenfrith
Gillian Clarke
Tour of the troubadours! The phrase has a Medieval ring that gives me a little romantic kick, though my horse is a car and the old cart tracks are the A-roads and M4 that take me criss-crossing my country over the borders of language. I'm leaving home a few days at a time, gigging with some o...
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Celebrate National Poetry Day in Wales
Laura Chamberlain
Today marks National Poetry Day across the UK, and there are a number of different events planned to mark the day across Wales. Take a look at the list on the National Poetry Day website, see our pick of events below and let us know if you intend to mark the day - and what you'll be doing. ...
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Gillian Clarke commemorates Six Bells with new poem
Laura Chamberlain
National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke has a written a new poem to mark the 50th anniversary of the Six Bells colliery disaster. Monday 28 June marked 50 years since the explosion at the Arael Griffin pit at the Six Bells Colliery that killed 45 men. Photograph of Gillian Clarke 漏 Academi /...
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Gillian Clarke's sonnet on silent skies
Laura Chamberlain
National poet of Wales Gillian Clarke has written a sonnet entitled Blue Sky Thinking, inspired by the recent ban on air travel in the UK due to the volcanic ash cloud emitted by Iceland's Eyjafjallaj枚kull volcano. Listen to a clip on the 成人论坛 Wales News website in which she recites the sonnet a...
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Love poetry in 'fevered brow' research
成人论坛 Wales Arts
As Valentines Day approaches, research staff at Aberystwyth University are putting love poetry to the test - to see if reading verse causes blushes or a fevered brow. University researchers are using state-of-the-art thermal imaging cameras to record the faces of volunteers reading love poems,...
