Glasfryn Project

SCOTT THURSTON SCOTT THURSTON’S books include: Reverses Heart’s Reassembly (Veer Books, 2011), Of Being Circular (The Knives Forks and Spoons Press, 2010), Internal Rhyme (Shearsman, 2010), Momentum (Shearsman, 2008), and Hold (Shearsman, 2006). He edits The Radiator, a little magazine of poetics, and co-edits The Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry. Scott lectures at the University of Salford and has published widely on innovative poetry, including a recent books of interviews Talking Poetics (Shearsman, 2011). See his pages at www.archiveofthenow.com/ GRAHAM HARTILL Poet, workshop facilitator, lecturer. Born in 1952 in the English Midlands, Graham has lived in Wales most of his life since 1971. He studied at the Universities of Wales and Massachusetts, and has since given countless workshops and classes in the UK, USA and China. Co–founder of LAPIDUS, the UK–wide association for the promotion of creative writing in therapeutic contexts, Graham was also a Scottish Arts Council Writing Fellow 1990-92 and an Arts Council of Wales Writer’s Bursary recipient 1993, 1999 and 2006. Selected Publications: Ruan Ji’s Island and (Tu Fu) in the Cities (The Wellsweep...

Patrons - MARJORIE PERLOFF and ALLEN FISHER Four years, and still dancing - here comes the Hay Poetry Jamboree 2012. Another great and varied line-up showcasing some of the most interesting and challenging poets of the era, from the brand-new to the long-established: a bristling cross-generational congeries of modes, styles, allegiances and philosophies. The Poetry Jamboree is now establishing a fraternal relationship with the TRAGHETTI DI POESIA Festival Internazionale at Cagliari, which it is...

February 25th 11.00 am - 4.30 pm Allen Fisher delivers the next Glasfryn Seminar, on The Aesthetics of the Imperfect Fit. Three seminars with an integrated preamble. 1: Perception and Truth. Ideal forms, derived from approximations or summaries of experience of the natural world, provide patterns of connectedness. examples lead into such inventions as the Golden Mean and Fibonacci series. this becomes a discussion about the relationship between perception and truth, ideas of order and parrhesia. 2:...

THE FREDERICK J FREDERICKS PROJECT 11am - 4pm, Sunday 30th October, 2011 Frederick J Fredericks is a free one day event taking place in the Brecon Beacons National Park as part of Powys Arts Month. The event comprises an artist-led journey on foot, to caves at Craig y Cilau National Nature Reserve. The event will include installations, performance, poetry, improvised music, pomegranates, messages for the dead. The project’s title is derived from a piece of 18th Century graffiti found in the main cave. Artists, Poets and Performers so far include: Susan Adams Stefhan Caddick Morag Colquhoun Lyndon Davies John Goodby Penny Hallas Graham Hartill Anthony Mellors Chris Nurse Team Sports (Matthew Lovett, Jimmy Ottley, Ian Watson) Scott Thurston Christopher Twigg Tessa Waite Gillian Stevens Directions: The walk to Craig y Cilau caves will set out from the playground in the park opposite the Horseshoe Inn, Llangattock, NP8 1PA in the morning of 30th October (people are advised to gather at 11.00 am). There is parking in streets nearby. The caves are also more easily accessible from Darren Car Park, grid reference: SO208153. Further...

The Hay Poetry Jamboree celebrates its third birthday with another magnificent line-up of some of the best and most exciting poets on the contemporary scene, amongst them Allen Fisher, Carol Watts, Ralph Hawkins, Maggie O'Sullivan, Sean Bonney and Kelvin Corcoran. Robert Sheppard delivers this year's academic lecture, Elysium Gallery from Swansea present Bus Stop Cinema, an extravaganza of short films in the chapel. Come and sample the amazing atmosphere of this small but extremely telling festival. Check...

The Hay Poetry Jamboree was conceived as a modest attempt to redress an imbalance. Although there are a number of established poetry festivals in Britain, few provide more than a bare modicum of space for those poetries which operate outside the margins of the mainstream. The Jamboree set out to provide another platform for writers working within a more exploratory ethos. The Jamboree is partisan, but not doctrinaire - it's chief criteria are “Is it good?” and “Is it interesting?” Our...

In November Glasfryn Seminars played host to Border/Lines, a group of poets and academics who come together to discuss literature, critical practice and theory and to explore links, differences and new approaches to an understanding of their relationship. The ethos of the Borderlines meetings is one of openness and spontaneity, the structure of the gatherings is partly improvised on the day, although on each of the two first meetings a theme or a text was mooted as a point of attack, and people were asked to prepare and share material in advance. At Glasfryn the chosen text was Maurice Blanchot's essay The Gaze of Orpheus, and people were asked to respond to this and to the general theme of the Orphic myths. The day commenced with a paper around these topics, by Lyndon Davies, and the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon was given over to discussion. During the morning, artist Penny Hallas had created two drawings for the Border/Lines event in her studio upstairs, and people were taken one by one to the studio to record their pre-prepared responses to the Blanchot essay to camera. After each reading the guest was invited to sign both drawings, one with a rubber and one with...

The Glasfryn Seminars were initiated as a response to what the organisers perceive as a paucity of opportunities in Wales for writers (as well as interested readers) to come together to exchange ideas on the nature of poetry, literature and the arts in general. Whilst readings and workshops continue to flourish, discussion seems largely sequestered in the universities or drip-fed through the pages of the periodicals. What was needed, we felt, were more venues and occasions at which practitioners...

October 5th, The Old Library, Cardiff, 6.30pm (with John Goodby and exhibition by Penny Hallas) October 6th, St John's Church, Abbey Road, Llangollen, 6.30 pm (with John Goodby and Childe Rolande) October 19th, Hen and Chickens Pub, Abergavenny, 7.30 pm (with Samantha Wynne Rhydderch) October 27th, Bangor, Palas Print (with John Goodby) October 28th, University Bookshop, Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, 6.30 pm (with John Goodby)