I am chuffed to announce that I will be reading at the finale of the 2010 Dylan Thomas Festival at the Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea.

From the 2010 Dylan Thomas Festival brochure:
"A fabulous double-bill to end the Festival, with readers from the regular collaborative poetry performance evening the Dylan Thomas Centre runs with The Crunch poetry night at Swansea's Mozart's. Those performing are Marcel Fanara, Emily Vanderploeg, Rhys Owain Williams and Adam Sillman.

They will be followed by a welcome return for Canadian poetry & music collective The Fugitives, who wowed the crowd at the DTC in 2005."

The event is on Tuesday 9th November at 7.30pm, and entry is completely FREE. For more information go to the event page: http://www.dylanthomas.com/index.cfm?articleid=8653

Check out The Fugitives: http://www.fugitives.ca/

Originally published on everythingbutamisprint.tumblr.com in October 2010.

J. Brookes is almost certainly not as well-known outside his adopted hometown as he should be. Well-respected by the well-respected (Sheenagh Pugh and Robert Minhinnick have both offered particularly praising analyses of his latest collection), the South-East Londoner who moved to Cardiff in the 1990s is considered to be one of the Welsh capital's finest contemporary poets. 

Brookes' road from The Big Smoke to his current home in south Wales took in many sights; born in 1951, he left Britain almost straight from school to travel Europe and the Middle East (although not before getting kicked out of Leeds Art College). After a decade of hitch-hiking his way across the Eurasian continent, he briefly settled in Ireland in the mid-1970s, where he achieved a degree in English at the University of Ulster. Brookes would then go on to teach his degree subject in the Sudan and Turkey, pausing only to complete a Masters in Sheffield, before making a permanent return to Britain to take a job at a psychiatric hospital in Brighton. He fell in love with a Welsh woman and moved to Cardiff in 1990, where he founded The Yellow Crane poetry magazine (1995–2005).

Three quarters of the Oxslam! wooden-spoon-winning team, pictured upon their return to Swansea.
(L-R) Rhys Owain Williams, Liza Penn-Thomas, Adam Sillman (Simone Mansell Broome not pictured).

Final Score: Cardiff – 1120 – Swansea – 1050, with over £300 raised in aid of Oxfam.

Originally published on everythingbutamisprint.tumblr.com in October 2010.

I first became aware of the man they call "Scotland's leading rural poet" at the 2009 Edinburgh Book Festival. Michael Russell, the then Scottish Minister for Culture (amongst other things), had already introduced a number of fine personal selections from the Scottish Poetry Library when he welcomed Carruth to the stage to read '264'. Apparently persuaded to give this impromptu reading by a glass of wine Russell had placed in his hands, Carruth captivated us with an enigmatic narrative that kept even the most acute audience members guessing until the end.

Born in Johnstone in 1963 and raised on his family's farm near Kilbarchan, Carruth's work gives voice to what he believes has become a fragile way of life. The poet calls his latest collection Cowpit Yowe (Ludovic Press, 2008) an exploration of "the changing language of agriculture and the seasons...how learning on the farm is built on the knowledge of previous generations and how this is threatened by increasing challenges facing this rural way of life." However, although I greatly admire Carruth for his active role in the preservation of agricultural traditions and practices, I must admit to preferring his poems which are only set in this rural landscape and do not deal directly with farming’s lamentable struggle to survive.

I have a prose poem featured in issue 5 of PiNBACK magazine.

"PiNBACK is a new literature, art and graphic design magazine based in Dublin, Ireland and Cardiff, UK by Damien O Reilly. The idea is to create a platform of expression both literary and visually for anybody willing to get their voice out there."

The magazine is available from:

• Forbidden Planet, Dublin
• The Winding Stair, Dublin
• Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin
  
• Milkwood Gallery, Cardiff

I picked my copy up from the Milkwood Gallery in Cardiff, which is well worth a visit if you ever find yourself in Roath (although I would recommend you use some sort of GPS to find it if you aren't familiar with the area). Visit the gallery's website here: milkwoodgallery.com

For more information about PiNBACK and Damien O Reilly go here or here.

I have a haibun ('The Pint that Follows') and two haiku published in the latest issue of Graffiti. 

Based in Cirencester, the magazine is a relatively new publication from the Catchword Writer's Group, edited by well-respected haibunist Rona Laycock. 

Published quarterly at a price of only £2 per issue, Graffiti is a mix of poetry, fiction and features, often based around a theme (the theme for issue 6 is 'Travel' – with some great writing on offer).

For more info, including how to submit or subscribe, email graffiti.magazine@yahoo.co.uk or visit their Facebook fan page here.