Glasfryn Project

This page will be added to over the following weeks.

February 25th 2012: ALLEN FISHER, Glasfryn Seminar: The Aesthetics of the Imperfect Fit. See: glasfrynproject.org.uk/w/1274/glasfryn-seminar-with-allen-fisher/

June 7th – 9th 2012: HAY POETRY JAMBOREE: Salem Chapel, Bell Bank, Hay on Wye. Watch this space for further details. Readers so far: Peter Larkin, Ulli Freer, Harriet Tarlo, Andrea Brady, JP Ward, Tony Lopez, Tim Atkins, Jeff Hilson, Caroline Goodwin, Harry Gilonis, Jeremy Hilton, Philip Terry, Nerys Williams, Sophie Robinson, Laurie Duggan, Steven Hitchens, Andrew Duncan, David Greenslade, Keith Hackwood.

See also: glasfrynproject.org.uk/w/156/hay-poetry-jamboree/

Out Now:

BOILED STRING POETRY CHAPBOOKS SERIES

(John Goodby writes): The Boiled String poetry chapbooks series was founded in autumn 2011 by John Goodby, under the umbrella of Tom Cheesman’s Hafan Books imprint. Its aim is to develop Hafan’s commitment to publishing the writings of asylum seekers in a different but complementary vein, by providing a Welsh-based outlet for poets who see poems as events in language rather than purely as vehicles for sentiment or anecdote. It takes its inspiration from the fabulous founding triumvirate of Anglo-Welsh poetry, Dylan Thomas, David Jones and Lynette Roberts and their many brilliant, largely unrecognised, successors.

The creation of the Welsh Assembly in 1997 created a new cultural space in Wales, breaking down some longstanding divisions between anglophone and cymrophone zones, and between conservative, past-fixated, mainstream poetry and an embattled avant-garde. Poetry Wales’ present eclectic excellence, the annual Hay Poetry Jamboree, and the Glasfryn poetry seminars are all signs of the new vistas that have opened up as a result. The last decade has seen the republication of Lynette Roberts’ poems after fifty-six years out of print, the appearance of John James’ and Wendy Mulford’s collected poems and a selected Paul Evans, and the continuing indefatigable inventiveness of Peter Finch, restoring an occluded era to younger poets and critics, while reminding them that it was still alive and kicking. New energies not seen since the 1960s have been released, and seem uncontainable; it may always be too early, or too late, to say so, but it seems as if Welsh alternative poetry is currently enjoying something of a golden age.

Publishers and arts organisers lag badly behind this rapidly-evolving scene. Many, in a time of retrenchment, think mass appeal incompatible with serious linguistic play, and confuse novelty with originality. But Welsh experimentalists, from Thomas to James, have always been adept at mixing high and low, free of crippling English embarrassment at melding the difficult and the popular. In the spirit of the hyphenations of Welshness and the hybrids it enables, Boiled String will promote against-the-grain, neglected talents and foster emergent ones, encouraging work that confounds distinctions, mixes modes, splices tongues – Welsh and English, of course, but others are welcome too. Fresh sêr will shine in the old skies. Concrete will pave ascents of the sacred mynydd. All will be welcome on its summit as the bling-bright macaronic dawn comes up: KROESO.

The first three Boiled String chapbook titles (all 2011) are:

1.  There’s Only the Dance, by David Barnett: Afterword by Andrew Duncan. pp. 46. ISBN 978-0-9569473-0-7 Cover artwork and portrait of the author by Annie Durrant.

2.  Six of Clubs, by Peter Meilleur [‘Childe Roland’]: Afterword blurbs by Nigel Jenkins, Sophie McKeand, Maggie O’Sullivan, John Goodby. pp. 120. ISBN 978-0-9562409-9-6

3.  mynydd, by Rhys Trimble: Afterword by Chris Torrance. pp. 34. ISBN 978-0-9569473-1-4.

All chapbooks are published using Lulu online print technology, with full colour cover and b&w illustrations. Price: £5.00 for a single title, any two for £8.00 / three for £11.00 (postage free) from: John Goodby, 26 Sketty Park Drive, Swansea SA2 8LN. Email: goby-goodby@ntlworld.com

View all: Issue 2, Junction Box | Posted on 27 Dec 2011 |