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An Interview With Nancy Wright - American Welsh Poet

AmeriCymru spoke to Nancy Wright, American-Welsh poet and WNAA Board of Trustees member about her poetry and her involvement with the North American Welsh Choir .Nancy was the winner of first place prize in the 2011 West Coast Eisteddfod Poetry Competition. To read her winning entry go here:- Remembering Fengdu Go here to enter this years West Coast Eisteddfod Online Poetry Competition

Peter Freeman - On Stage At The West Coast Eisteddfod

Peter Freeman

This is the latest in an occasional series highlighting performers and contestants at the  September 2011 'West Coast Eisteddfod- Welsh Festival of Arts' at the Barnsdall Art Park , Los Angeles . In this post we are proud to feature Welsh story teller, Peter Freeman , who will be appearing in the standup comedy competition..For more info about the event go here. To reserve your ticket for Saturday 24th click the button below :- 

 

 
( Approximately 250 tickets currently available. Buy early to avoid disappointment. )

"I was born and raised in the town of Llanelli on the south coast of Wales. Outside of the UK it seems most people think of the whole island as England, when in fact there are four historic nations that make up the Island; Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and England. In Wales, more so than any of the other Celtic countries, even Ireland. We still speak the ancient language that existed before the Anglo-Saxon invasions of the 5th Century. I was 11 years old before I could speak English with any proficiency (There are some who say I don’t speak it yet)

I went to work for the local bus company, South Wales Transport, in 1971. It was only a stopgap until I could find something better. I’m still looking for something better. I’ve been involved with mass transit ever since. I worked as a bus driver, an assistant transport manager and, for a change of pace, as a tour bus driver based in London. I was living the happy, carefree life of a bachelor and loving it. “Fall into their arms but not into their hands” was my motto. Then an American woman, on vacation, caught my bus. Before I knew it I was married and living in Los Angeles, California. We just celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. I should mention that my wife is a Native American, Apache nation. We have two boys, half Welsh and half Apache, I joke that they are going to grow up to be drunken fighting fools."

When I came here I decided to do what I have always done and I joined the bus company. I became a federally certified instructor and yes I teach Americans how to drive a bus. As an instructor I would often point out the importance of what we do. I believe and have always believed that mass transit is essential to modern civilization."

There are a number of highlights to my career; More than I could comfortably fit into this article. The award that I am most proud of came in the year 2000 when the readers of the Downtown News voted me “Best Bus Driver” in Los Angeles. The other highlight was when I was an operator out of the West Hollywood Division, a television station back in Wales were doing a program called “The Welsh in Hollywood” We drove a bus around Hollywood and Beverly Hills with the T.V. crew on board filming and interviewing me. It resulted in a lot of e-mails and calls from friends and family. "

These days I’m a supervisor for Metro. My current assignment is as a controller at the Bus Operations Control Center. The great thing about my job is that I get to see the whole of Metro. Usually when you work in a department all that is seen is that particular area, as a controller I get to see the whole of Metro at every level. It’s an eye opening experience and can be a very rewarding one."

In 2009 I received a call from a production company, Human World, based in Santa Monica. They contacted me through the Celtic Arts Center; they were making a promo video for the release of Bungie Corporation’s latest addition to the Halo X-Box 360 game series called “Halo 3 ODST.” I’m not a gamer and had never heard of the game up to that point. They said they wanted a song for the video and they were looking for an “Obscure” language. They felt Welsh would be a good fit and asked if I could write the song. I agreed, we used the tune from a contemporary Welsh song called “Lament” gave it a martial beat, then following the guidelines they gave me I wrote the song. It went viral on You Tube and is still very popular."

My friend Lorin Richards is putting together a beautifully illustrated book based on the Welsh alphabet. He wrote a poem where each stanza describes a character from Welsh legend and begins with a letter from the alphabet. I have been invited to contribute to the book, writing the preface and a short piece about each character to go along with Lorin’s poem. The book will be ready by the end of September 2011."

  

New book launched! Sawing Fallen Logs For Ladybird Houses

Welsh writer Dave Lewis has just published his new book – Sawing Fallen Logs For Ladybird Houses, a collection of poetry split into five sections and accompanied by photographs on the authors web site. The collection contains the poem ‘Learning in Gaps’ which was highly commended in the New Writer competition judged by Helen Ivory

An Interview With Bruce Lader

Bruce Lader’s fourth collection of poetry, Embrace, is about the need for love and intimacy. Winner of the 2010 Left Coast Eisteddfod Poetry Competition, he has received a writer-in-residence fellowship from The Wurlitzer Foundation and an honorarium from the College of Creative Studies at UC-Santa Barbara. A New York City teacher for many years, he is the founding director of Bridges Tutoring, an organization based in Raleigh, North Carolina, educating multicultural students. We spoke to Bruce about his work and the poets craft.

AmeriCymru: Hi Bruce, and many thanks for agreeing to be interviewed by AmeriCymru. You won the Left Coast Eisteddfod poetry competition last year with your poem 'Iberia' . Care to tell us what inspired it?

Bruce: The night I wrote “Iberia,” the famous gypsy flamenco dancer, Carmen Amaya, and I danced a passionate duet at Los Gallos in Sevilla. The image in the fifth stanza of the poem, “gypsy fires dance duende from earth/ like poppies of blood/ flaming Andalusian mountains” refers to our unforgettable performance. Actually, Ceri, what really inspired the poem might not sound as exciting.

I was traveling alone in Spain in 1977 with a Berlitz handbook and a semester of high school Spanish. Being a fan of flamenco singing and dancing, I attended a flamenco performance in Sevilla. I wrote the poem in Mallorca, then flew to England for the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth, and visited Laugharne where Dylan wrote most of his poems. The friendly people I met in Wales are also in my memory.

The words and images flowed together in a single draft. It was an attempt to evoke the duende spirit of Spain’s culture. The sprung organic energy of poets like Dylan Thomas and G.M. Hopkins (who considered himself half Welsh) had already influenced me, as had the surreal poetry of Lorca. A Spanish friend in Brooklyn helped me translate the poem when I came back home, but I haven’t tried to get it published in Spanish. Poems often live with me many years before they’re ready to send out. I wasn’t satisfied with the last four lines and revised them in 2003 with the allusion to Don Quixote, then the poem was published by Talking River at Lewis-Clark State College in Idaho. After reading the Eisteddfod Competition poems on the AmeriCymru site, I thought it might be a good one to enter and was honored that Peter Thabit Jones chose it. “Iberia” is included in one of my full-length books that’s almost finished.

AmeriCymru: Your most recent collection, 'Embrace'  marks something of a departure from earlier anthologies like 'Landscapes of Longing' . What prompted you to focus on personal relationships and the universal human need for love in this collection?

Bruce: I’d been publishing poems about love and eroticism in magazines for many years. The decision to include all love poems in one book took place after having many relationship experiences and being in a second marriage. Like many of us, I’m still trying to understand relationships and how to make marriage succeed. Just imagine all the trouble and time it would save if everyone owned talking social robots downloaded with different personalities. We could finally get rid of the problems involved in maintaining relationships. The Vicissitudes of Romance section of Landscapes of Longing, has poems focused on intimate relationships, and Discovering Mortality, my first full-length collection also includes poems about love.

The motive to write positively about love and sex went into Embrace. It’s about various conflicting and amusing moments between lovers. My wife, Renata, who is Polish, likes to believe that every poem in the book is about her, and that’s fine with me since she inspired the book and I want the marriage to survive. There are so many kinds of love that perhaps the need for it is what makes it universal. I don’t believe “romantic” love, as we know it in the western world, is universal, though the need for a kind of intimate loving connection with another is probably what makes us human and prevents total destruction. Contemporary poetry—in the US anyway—is losing the intimate author-reader connection. A thin line separates the personal from the sentimental, and experienced poets try to stay away from the greeting-card zone. That could be one reason there aren’t more poets writing about love affairs. It also requires a lot of strength to explore difficult conflicted feelings.

AmeriCymru: Your poem "How to Bring a Marriage Good Luck" contains a number of 'tips' to help maintain a healthy relationship. Care to tell us a little more about it? I particularly enjoyed the sparseness and finality of number 5:- "Cancel seven business engagements."

Bruce: Ceri, I’m glad you like the fifth step. My brother asked me to read this poem at his wedding in Eugene two year ago and it’s one of my favorites. I want readers to imagine browsing through a bookstore, opening an old book of mysterious encoded spells and turning to a page on how to bring good luck into a relationship. The book of charms has been used so much that part of the last step is missing (maybe stolen) as indicated in the poem.

The poem is about the magic that can happen when we make time for ourselves and the loved ones in our lives. It takes time and effort to crack the secret encryptions of our relationships. Perhaps love relationships have become too much like “business engagements.” Step five seems to work almost as effectively as number six, the sensuous/erotic step, which has been proven effective through many years of personal experience. Five works better in theory than practice since a lot of us would settle for canceling even one business engagement if we could. The entire poem is intended to be a humorous satire on our struggles to balance our hectic lives and make relationships work. I have to voice a disclaimer that any of the tips in the poem help to maintain a healthy relationship, though sharing humor about love’s craziness can bring temporary relief.

AmeriCymru:  How should we approach our reading of poetry in the 21st century? Should it be  a comfortable/entertaining or an unnerving and unsettling experience?

Bruce: Perhaps when we read poetry, we should ask ourselves if the poems have a magical effect on us, if something in a poem invites us to read it again, if the subject and the way it’s written influence the way we think about, feel about, or perceive the world. The question is related to others like what is beauty in poetry, what kinds of challenges should poetry be offering, and how much risk should poets take with their work? That is to say, a lot of uncomfortable poetry challenges us because it deals with unpleasant subject matter, and at the same time its impact brings to awareness a sense of beauty within us. Since the question is perennial in literary history and argued among poets and critics, it’s hard to answer it adequately.

What can be inferred from this question is the issue of whether should poets focus on unpleasant subjects like suffering, evil, death, economic inequalities, and politics, or write comfortable feel-good poems, leaving to politicians and journalists the ugly, messy stuff about war and other horrendous problems that threaten our planet. I believe that poets need to address the important issues of their times. The challenges will be to interpret scientific breakthroughs in the fields of physics, biology, environmental studies, and technology. Recent discoveries are already changing the way we think about the origin of the universe and the meaning of life. The changes themselves are unsettling and poets need to address the problems.

I like to read challenging social and political poems that explore difficult age-old themes like the meanings of freedom, justice, and love in new ways that seem magical. My emotional and intellectual responses to themes like these are similar to listening to certain kinds of music like jazz and European classical, but I can’t speak for the ways that other readers approach poetry since, like music, what we look for, and find in poetry, differs depending on our life experiences and knowledge of the arts. Much of what I liked to read when I was a newcomer to poetry isn’t the kind of poetry I enjoy after four decades of reading and publishing, though I return to the classics and continue to get ideas from them. The second section of Landscapes of Longing is my interpretation of the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus from the viewpoints of 12 different speakers. I wrote them to get at certain truths about human nature that might be disturbing.

Poets provide lenses of experience for reflecting on the world. Poetry written from the perspectives of established religious beliefs will always be around and readers may find comfort in them. However, the dichotomy of comfortable versus disturbing is paradoxical in that poets with the ability to write about difficult emotional material can open a window of empathy for readers and provide them with opportunities to find comfort. Poetry concerned with the unpleasant real world we live in can be entertaining, comforting, and even spiritual to the extent that readers can connect with a poet’s emotions and share the knowledge, experiences, and wisdom in the poems. Poetry will continue to help us become better human beings and lead more fulfilling lives.

The experience of reading and listening to poetry is already being revolutionized. In the next two or three decades, poets will be projecting virtual sensory images as holographic text messages from computers, cameras, and phones. Poets and audiences will be able to participate in slams, open mics, and workshops in our living rooms, classrooms, and on our porches. Poetry books and magazines will be sold at supermarket check outs, as well as bookstores, for those of us who want hard copies in our hands. The proliferation of online magazines and social networking tools is only the beginning of how poetry will be popularized and marketed as entertainment. Many poetry publishers and poets will be marketed like other entertainment enterprises. It’s a good idea for poets and readers to invest more in each other. We haven’t done that enough in the past.

AmeriCymru: Is the ability to write poetry a gift or is it the end result of decades of hard work?

Bruce: Another complex question. The ability to write lyrical verse is probably “a gift” related to the ability to create music. Most of what we consider to be traditional lyric poetry—stanzas with end-rhyme schemes set to classical metric forms that dominated poetry for so many centuries—have become less popular in contemporary poetry. The fact that a poem is rhymed and has classical Greek meter doesn’t necessarily make the poetry lyrical, in my opinion, only formal.

Rhythm is an open-ended resource for creativity. Modern and contemporary free verse that sings from an organic place in the poet’s distinctively voiced instrument is far more interesting, to me, than formal poetry and comes from decades of desire and hard work, though good formal and free verse both require lifetimes of commitment to craft. Commitment is about making poetry the top priority, and the willingness to sacrifice income and material comforts. A sense of being true to one’s poetic gift, a striving to get it (the gift) right, may be a poet’s ultimate responsibility.

I began as a lyric poet and all the poems in my first chapbook, Buoy on the Water, are free verse songs. Then I decided to blend natural cadences with narrative poetry so that I could more effectively relate what I know to readers. I like to let the content and rhythm of each poem determine its eventual form. The turn, or shift, in rhythmic direction that occurs in sonnets is natural for me and I have experimented with the possibilities of sonnet form. The ability to work with metaphorical ideas to convey feelings, especially extended metaphor, may also be inborn, and can certainly be developed.

AmeriCymru: How difficult is it for modern poets to find an audience? Is the internet an aid or a hindrance?

Bruce: Since the advent of the Internet and social networking, poets are finding the audiences they want a lot easier, and it’s a lot easier for audiences to find the poets they like. Poetry is becoming more of a viable product to larger audiences. Millions of viewers visit certain poetry magazine sites every issue, but I don’t think they carefully read more than a few of the poems on each site. I can read steadily at the computer for 20-30 minutes before my eyes get weary, but I can read a book or magazine in my hands for hours. The increased number of open mics, workshops, and literary organizations also makes it easier for poets to find their audience. The real difficulty is how to maintain the audience after finding it, since there are so many interesting poets in the marketplace and most of the audience is comprised of poets. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of audiences read poetry who aren’t also writers. This is a problem that publishers and small press, non-commercial writers continue to face.

Poets with Internet know-how and the time to social network are having good results. The Internet has been helping my work get published. Whether the Internet will influence the quality of poetry to achieve a higher or lower level over several decades is debatable; everyone has an opinion and it’s still too soon to conclude one way or the other. One of the dangers is that poets—beginners in particular—may believe that networking is a shortcut to learning the craft of writing and use it mainly to become popular. By focusing mainly on their audience, and not taking the time to read poets of proven excellence, many are neglecting better-quality poets who have spent lifetimes developing their craft.

AmeriCymru: What advice would you offer to anyone considering poetry as a vocation?

Bruce: Go for your dream—whether the dream is organizing poetry events in your community, writing poems to change the world, or winning prestigious award competitions. Reflect on why you write and the deeper meanings of your poems. Remember to write about the things and people you love; even experienced poets often forget this. Locate your inner comfort zone and take risks, research new subject matter of interest to you and try to write about ideas in ways you didn’t think you could, challenge yourself to write about a subject that is emotionally difficult—even if that poem doesn’t work, another one in the future could surprise you. If nothing in a new poem is surprising you, it probably won’t grab other readers. Write several versions of the poem, experiment with various rhythms, let the content determine the rhythm and free verse shapes of lines and stanzas, and use traditional forms to see what works better for you. Stretch outside your zone and keep learning. Ask for feedback about your writing from various poets whose writing you admire and from editors of magazines you value for the work they publish.

My practical advice is to spend a lot of time writing. Learn the poetry press market and network as soon as you can, but not at the expense of sacrificing needed writing time. If you’re spending more time networking and promoting than writing poems, schedule more writing time. Use search engines like Duotrope’s Digest to find publishers looking for your kind of work. Also develop the craft of prose, if you can, to complement poetry and help build a career. Join writers’ groups and societies, writing meetup groups, book clubs, men’s and women’s centers, attend poetry readings and workshops, and get into college writing programs. Develop a routine of writing and/or submitting every day. Don’t worry if your work doesn’t get published the first five or more years you submit; unsigned rejection slips and email responses with no comments are disappointing, but they don’t mean anything about the quality of your writing. Search for other magazines and book publishers and believe in your talent. Support other poets and they will eventually support you if you stay committed.

Read a variety of international poets living and dead. If you don’t enjoy the process of reading and writing poetry, read other genres. Maybe fiction or nonfiction is better suited to your talent. Poets need a lot of time to write, independent publishers expect them to spend a lot of time to promote their books, and the books bring little if any profit to the poets. A very small percentage of poets are fortunate enough to find commercial publishers. Anyone who believes they can earn a significant income from publishing only poetry should choose another occupation. Some money from poetry can be made from teaching workshops and courses, but the work is harder, travel expenses are involved, and the hours are much longer than in other vocations.

My rewards from poetry have come from the dream of being a poet who writes inventive poems that others understand and enjoy. I also get a sense of fulfillment from being friends with other poets in writers’ groups, and reading my work in print alongside poets whose work I admire. There have been exciting surprises—the $150 and publication in The Seventh Quarry that came with winning the Eisteddfod Competition were unexpected bonuses. There are poetry contests that offer thousands to the winner. However, the chance of winning any contest is like a lottery. In other words, I’m not going to leave my job as director of Bridges Tutoring. Besides, I enjoy helping students develop writing and reading skills and they have inspired many of my poems.

AmeriCymru: Where can people read/purchase your work online?

Bruce: My thanks to anyone who reads this interview. People can find excerpts of my books and purchase them from my author site at www.brucelader.com. The books are also available from the publishers, but you save shipping and handling costs by emailing me directly at bridgesbl@aol.com. Plus, you will receive a FREE jewelry gift of your choice: one pair of beaded earrings or one FREE beaded bookmark for any copy of Embrace, Landscapes of Longing, or Discovering Mortality that you order. My wife, Renata, is Polish and an award-winning artist who crafts gorgeous gifts. She made the complimentary jewelry to help launch the books.

There are YouTube videos of my readings and interviews, and magazines like Poetry, New York Quarterly, Harpur Palate, CircleShow, Centrifugal Eye, Earthshine, and Contemporary Verse 2 have archived my work online.

Here are links to my readings and interviews:

Red Room

The Artist's Craft Interview & Reading (Channel 10, Raleigh) January 2010

Full of Crow Radio Podcast Interview & Reading, August 29, 2010

Carrboro Book Beat Radio Podcast Interview & Reading, July 5, 2010

Jane Crown Talk Show Radio Podcast Interview & Reading, May 2, 2010

PoetrySpark Festival Reading, September 28, 2009

Poetry Hickory Open-Mic Reading, November 10, 2009 (with other readers)

Bruce Lader reads at PoetrySpark Open Mic

AmeriCymru: What's next for Bruce Lader?

Bruce: Diolch/Thank you, Ceri, for this chance to introduce myself to AmeriCymru members and visitors.

Radio interviews and public readings in NC to promote Embrace and Landscapes of Longing will continue. A chapbook of my antiwar poems is due to be published soon. The title is Voyage of the Virtual Citizen and the publisher is Lummox Press. The book is about a Special Forces soldier and his experiences from enlistment through his adjustment to civilian life and coping with PTSS (which reminds me that I’ve been reading Alun Lewis’s Collected Poems, thanks to my friend Mary Perkins-Gray, an excellent Welsh poet). Toward the end of 2011, Červená Barva Press will publish Fugitive Hope, a full-length book of poems about ways that hope is lost and regained.

I’m always busy working on new poems and publishing in magazines and anthologies. I have been working on three chapbooks and a new full-length manuscript and querying to find interested publishers. Anyone is welcome to email me and talk about life, poetry, and the interview. I have edited poetry manuscripts for authors to submit to book publishers and magazines, and have edited papers to help students meet course and degree requirements. We could also talk about those possibilities if you like.

Pob hwyl/All the best to your organization.

Interview by Ceri Shaw Email

An Interview with Welsh Poet Mike Jenkins

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'Moor Music' by Mike Jenkins

In this innovative new book of poetry, Mike Jenkins continues his life-long obsession with the history and fate of Wales, embodied, in this instance by both the glories of the landscape and the depredations suffered in years of decline.

A view from the window of his writing room across the moors inspires reflections on the dereliction and renewal of the old industrial valleys, in poems like ‘Bonfire on the Waun’ and ‘Came the Ram’.

Mike’s career in teaching left him with a sense of optimism about young people, and with an eagerness to embrace changing times, evident in the lively ‘Einstein at the Comp.’ These poems, like his prize-winning short stories, are full of colourful characters, dialogue, and incident. A love of music and a sensitive awareness of the natural world in an urban context, in poems like, ‘Insomniac Jazz’ and ‘December Roses’ also enliven this new book.

Mike Jenkins lives in Merthyr and is a full-time writer and Creative Writing tutor, having spent over 30 years teaching in secondary education. The author of seven previous poetry collections for Seren, he has also published novels and short stories. He has won the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry and Wales Book of the Year, and is former editor of Poetry Wales and founder and co-editor of Red Poets magazine. As well as a blog, he writes regularly for Cardiff City fanzine Watch the Bluebirds Fly and reviews music for the political magazine Celyn.

Buy 'Moor Music' here

For any Mike Jenkins forthcoming readings/events please visit Seren website at www.serenbooks.com/events

An Interview With Paul Steffan Jones

Paul Steffan Jones

Americymru: Your first published collection of poems "Lull of The Bull" has been very well received and reviewed. Do you have any further works in preparation?

Paul: I am currently working on another collection of poems, provisionally entitled "My Enclave". I hope that this will appear in the summer of 2011. It will be a more claustrophobic, introspective, partisan and surgical work than my debut.

Americymru: Care to explain the significance of the title - "Lull of The Bull"?

Paul: Firstly, I consider it to be internal poetry in a small way in itself, almost musical in a Middle Eastern by way of West Wales route. Secondly, I live in a rural area and am of farming ancestry but have no practical experience of this former family lifestyle like many of my contemporaries though we are surrounded by farms our families used to own. Thirdly, it could be a comment on artificial insemination, emasculation, enforced celibacy and the changing roles of both genders, more pertinently the male in this case. Essentially, I don't really know. I just write the stuff, waiting for shapes to appear in a log jam of words. I like the look and sound of it like a magpie might. I prefer the reader to reach his or her own conclusions.

Americymru: For my money one of the most interesting and powerful poems in the collection is:- "I Opened My Mouth and Set Free Twenty Thousand Demons Who Had Accompanied Me Thus Far" Can you tell us a little more about the poem?

Paul: This poem is the result of a planned one hour session of instant writing, all the baggage of that moment saved up for one Friday midnight. This partly explains its apparent randomness and disconnectedness and it is a precursor of much of my present favoured method of writing. The title refers to a cathartic process which is ongoing. I guess that some of what I write makes no linear sense which is how I and the Druids like it.

Americymru: I must ask you about 'Bombstar'. A great poem and a strong lyric. Was it written with musical adaptation in mind? Do you plan to adapt more of your work in the future?

Paul: "Bombstar" was not written with musical adaptation in mind. I would like to collaborate with more songwriters as I feel this is an exciting way of presenting my words.

Americymru: What significance does 'Y Gododdin' have for you personally and in your writing?

Paul: That epic poem speaks to me of a different, heroic age. It describes a glorious, doomed raid on the invader at a time when Wales could have been independent had it been united or even existed, a recurring theme. I don't dream of going back there that often but sometimes feel an outsider in my own land . The stylised depictions of weapons, armour and carnage have informed some of my own imagery as has my own personal collection of edged weapons, itself a response to that age, that poem.

Americymru: On your website there are a number of short stories. Is this a genre that you plan to explore further?

Paul: I am interested in exploring the short story genre more fully. Ultimately I'd like to publish a collection of short stories but that's some time off.

Americymru: What's next for Paul Steffan Jones?

Paul: I intend finishing "My Enclave" as soon as possible and ensure it doesn't turn into a sort of "Gangster Gododdin"! I am experimenting in poems culled from excerpts from magazines. I'm eager to resume writing in Welsh. I will be involved in industrial action against Government cutbacks soon, no doubt. I hope to pick up a long story called "Lovetown" I'm not writing and do more photography, using it differently. I have a number of poetry readings in Pembrokeshire in the coming months and have ambitions to take the poems overseas. Oh, and some romance and adventure would not go amiss, either.

 
Americymru: Any final message for the members and readers of AmeriCymru?

Paul: Lull of the Bull is available at www.starbornbooks.co.uk . I'm glad to be on Americymru and am delighted at the interest shown in my country. I am a Welsh speaker and am happy to receive communications in that language.

Nature and Language’s Revival in the Valleys Inspires Maesteg Poet

This week Y Lolfa will be publishing a new volume of Welsh poetry by a learner from Maesteg. Cerddi’r Galon by Susan May is a collection of poems which transport the reader to the old industrial valleys of south Wales, where the works now stand idle and nature can be seen at her best once more. Susan began learning Welsh in the 1990s so that she was able to converse with her mother when she was unwell, she explains,

“My mother was bedridden and no-one remained of the family’s older generation to speak to her in Welsh so I decided to learn the language with her in 1994. When my mother died I promised myself that I would continue to learn to speak and write in Welsh.”

In 2001 Susan won the Learners Chair in the National Eisteddfod with the poem Yfory, which is included in this book along with several poignant and honest poems which discuss her childhood and life and topical issues such as open-cast mining. The poems look at the scars left behind on the landscape by the heavy industries of the area,

“Three coal mines employed 3,000 miners in the Maesteg area and some of the poems look at the beauty which has returned to these valleys.”

Her Welsh tutor, Morgan D Jones, has clearly made an impression on Susan as she has written a poem especially for him and he has written the foreword for this volume. Susan May was a lecturer in midwifery prior to her retirement. In order that Welsh learners can enjoy the poems she has included a vocabulary for each one. Cerddi’r Galon is sure to enrich the experience of learning the Welsh language, and will appeal to learners of different standards and Welsh speakers alike. The price of Cerddi’r Galon, which is part of the Golau Gwyrdd (Green Light) series by Y Lolfa, is £4.95.

Environmental action poet addresses looming man-made catastrophes

Jason A. Dever’s first collection of poetry, Bard Time, is a call to arms to tackle the woes of our planet. He suggests that unconventional and controversial means should be employed to fulfil these objectives.

Dever’s volume mixes modern and ancient environmental poetry, with science and spiritual themes added. His poetry tries to simplify complex earth systems for the reader, creating excitement and feeling which helps promote independent thought. Controversial issues are debated thoroughly. The love, romance and loss section of his poetry expresses male emotions. It has a view to promote equality between males and females, with better communication leading to a happier world for both sexes.

Born and bred in Australia, but of Welsh heritage, Dever has strong ties with Wales and as a result chose to publish his first volume of poetry in Wales. He says ‘This book should naturally be popular in Wales as it describes all the good things about the Cymry, that is the land, people and language’.

He started his career as a science teacher, but now considers himself an environmentalist with an interest in all natural realms. Bard Time will be published by Dinas in June 2010

Calling All Bloggers

Are you a Poet, Short Story Writer or a Photographer?...then read on.... For the second year running the Left Coast Eisteddfod is being held in Portland Oregon. What is an Eisteddfod?   An Eisteddfod is essentially an arts competition and the Left Coast Eisteddfod is an online arts competition. It features four categories:- Poetry, Short Story, Photography and Video.  The first Eisteddfod was held in 1176 in Cardigan in Wales. The National Eisteddfod and Bala Eisteddfod are held in Wales every year and more all over the world, wherever Welsh people settled. The competition is open to both Americymru members and non-members and submissions need not have any Welsh relevance. Why should this be of interest to bloggers? Cash prizes of $150 dollars in all competition categories! Submissions judged by experts with international reputations! Winning submissions and other entries stay on a heavily trafficed page-rank 4, social network site for more than a year together with backlink! No registration fee! Two ways to submit your entry If you have an original poem,short story, photograph or video that you would like to enter you can either, Join the site. Americymru is an American Welsh social networking site on the Ning network BUT if you have no Welsh heritage fear not. You can simply check the Eisteddfod option when categorizing your profile or copy and paste the following ....'I am here to compete in the Eisteddfod', in the 'About Me' field. Registration only takes a minute or two. Please remember that in order to qualify your blog must have some literary, poetic or photographic content. If this is the case please feel free to include a link to your blog on your profile page. To join Americymru go here. If you prefer not to join but still wish to compete, email your submission to americymru@gmail.com. We will post it for you together with your backlink. You may request that your submission be removed at any time and we guarantee to respect your copyright. Your content will not appear on any other page than the submission page. The winners will be announced at the Left Coast Eisteddfod in Portland Oregon on Oct 6th 2010. Winners will be notified via email and checks mailed shortly after. Why are we doing this? Welsh culture is rich with artistic tradition in poetry, song and story.  Our mission is to promote art in the Welsh tradition in North America and to bring the Eisteddfod and the Welsh love of the arts and the art of the word to artists around the world. ( Submissions deemed to be of insufficient quality may be rejected by the Eisteddfod Organizing Committee.Please enter your best work. Blatant link-dropping will not be tolerated. ) To all our contestants both current and future we wish the very best of luck:)

Left Coast Eisteddfod 2010 Poetry Competition Now Accepting Submissions

Today we are pleased and proud to announce the first of our Left Coast Eisteddfod online competitions for 2010. Others will soon follow. Watch this space for further announcements. The rules and submission guidelines are reproduced below. We wish the very best of luck to all our future contestants. "You may submit your entry in either Welsh or English. You may submit up to four entries in each language category. The two language categories will be judged separately and there will be a prize for each. Accompanying graphics are not permitted. There is a US150 dollars (approximately 100GBP ) prize for the winners in both categories. The final submission date is September 15th 2010 and the winners will be announced at the Eisteddfod ( October 2010 ). The judges are:- Peter Thabit Jones ( English Language Category ) and John Good ( Welsh Language Category ) . The judges decisions will, of course, be final. The winner ( and runners up ) in the English Language Category will be featured in "The Seventh Quarry", an international poetry magazine edited by Peter Thabit Jones. All poetic styles and conventions are welcome ( limericks, however, will not be considered for a prize ) There is no upper or lower word limit. Entries need not reference Wales in any way , shape or form. You may submit up to four entries in each category and work which has appeared elsewhere is acceptable provided you have not surrendered your copyright. The winner and his/her work will also be featured on this site on what we hope will be a heavily trafficked page. How To Submit Your Poem Members 1. Simply join this Group and post your poem (and any links) as a separate discussion in the group forum ( here ). Please include your name in the subject line. If you wish to include a link to your website or blog please do so but remember you must link back to us. 2. Post your poem your website or blog and post a link to the relevant url as a separate discussion in the group forum ( here ). Once again you will need to link back to us. Non Members 1. Post your submission on your blog and email us with the url ( americymru@gmail.com ). We will include it on the Group page. We would appreciate a link to this page or to the blog home page. 2. Email your submission to us and we will post it on the group page and credit you as author. ( in this case mutual linking is an option but not required ) The Fine Print 1. There is no entry or submission fee for this competition. The requirement to backlink if you are posting on your own blog and linking here ( or submitting a link to your blog on this page ) is obligatory and designed to be mutually beneficial. 2. Any materials submitted in this group will remain the sole property of the author. We guarantee not to display any story or any portion thereof on other pages or sites without the express permission of the author. Likewise materials submitted here or linked here can be removed or unlinked at any time by the author or at his/her request." LAST YEARS WINNERS Welsh Language Elizabeth Barrette 'Hanes' English Language Sherry Weaver Smith 'Imprint'

From The Left Coast Eisteddfod - John Good on Welsh Poetry

One of the highlights of the recent Left Coast Eisteddfod in Portland , Oregon was a talk given by John Good at the Central Library on the subject of Welsh language poetry. This event was well attended and the talk and the impromptu musical performances which both followed and preceded it were recorded for posterity as a podcast and can be accessed and enjoyed at the following url:- John Good at Portland Central Library. ( There are some problems with sound reproduction in the opening minutes of the recording......please be patient.) John Good's CD - "The First 1500 Years of Welsh Poetry" can be purchased from the Oceans Apart site. John Good at The Left Coast Eisteddfod

And The Winner is....( Left Coast Eisteddfod - Poetry Competition/English Language )

A message from Peter Thabit Jones....


Adjudication



It was good to see the range of poetic forms and subjects submitted for the Competition. Each poem offered something to the reader, be it an imaginative mind-picture, an original phrasing of an emotion or a striking statement. Poetic devices (such as alliteration, internal rhyme and repetition) were handled in a confident and effective way. Those poets that tried a specific form displayed a control of stanzas and rhyme-patterns, which contributed to a sense of rhythm in their poems. I really enjoyed entering into the world of each poem. I reduced the large batch of entries to an impressive short-list of twelve potential winners.

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I feel the following poets deserve a mention for their very good poems:

Bee Richards, Jolen Whitworth, Stephen Hughes, Heidi Falk and Elnaz Rezaei Ghalechi.

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The RUNNER-UP of the Left Coast Eisteddfod 2009 Poetry Competition (English language Category) is Lines on Mt. Washington by Peter Lewis.

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It is a poem that builds up steadily and climaxes in an excellent and appropriate last line. The tone of the narrator engages; and there is some quite skilled sound-texturing throughout the work.

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The WINNER of the Left Coast Eisteddfod 2009 Poetry Competition (English language Category) is Imprint by Sherry Weaver Smith.

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It is a poem that presents an emotional and very human experience in a striking and original way. The poet controls the unfolding of the poem with admirable confidence. She utilises language for maximum effect and her poetic voice is powered by a quiet integrity. It is a poem that calls one back to it time after time and it still retains its obvious strengths. It will be a real pleasure to publish the poem in January’s Issue 11 of The Seventh Quarry Swansea Poetry Magazine.



Peter Thabit Jones, August 2009


Congratulations to Sherry and Peter....

Ten Questions With Jolen Whitworth

Americymru member Jolen Whitworth is a prolific writer of poetry which has won her both publishing and competition successes. She has also worked as an editor on a number of poetry and writing projects. She now lives in England with her husband James. Her book, Every Girl Has Her Limits was published in 2009 by UKA Press. Americymru: What in your opinion inspires people to write verse? Jolen: I suppose my first instinct is to say the need to express something in an immediate, creative fashion. People write verse about their everyday lives, social or political issues, art, etc. Regardless of form or subject matter, we all share the need to express ourselves in an artistic fashion. Verse just happens to be the chosen medium. Americymru: What is your background? How did you come to be interested in poetry? Jolen: I come from extremely humble beginnings. We were poor, and growing up, art of any kind wasn't appreciated or encouraged at home. However, I've always been in love with words and hungered to read everything I could get my hands on. Which, I did. I even read the dictionary for fun. I've been writing songs and stories since I could hold a crayon. It was my dream to write for as long as I can recall, but I kept it to myself, since it seemed to be impossible for so long. I have always found poetry beautiful, although I never foresaw myself writing it with any seriousness. That happened quite by accident. I had some poems hidden away for years and shared them with a long time friend. He finally convinced me to share them publicly. It was very raw and emotional work, but I got an immediate and favorable reaction to it by a poet from New York. Along with his and others encouragement, I began to work on improving and polishing my work. In the process, I discovered that I needed to write poetry as much as I needed to breathe. It was a profound personal revelation. Americymru: What is your compositional method? Jolen: That is a difficult question for me to answer effectively. Most often, it will begin with an image or concept I find intriguing. Then I start to put some words down on paper and allow the thoughts to take me on a journey, while I write it out. After that, the real work begins; the task of shaping, sharpening and polishing those thoughts and images into a piece that conveys my message best. Americymru: The title of your collection "Every Girl has Her Limits" is interesting. How much is it a reaction to the circumstances of your life and how much is it a more general philosophical statement? Jolen: Thank you. I tend to write in first person, regardless, and while most of the poems in this collection are reflective of my personal journey, I have tried to express those things and others in a broad enough manner to make a general philosophical statement. I try to create something that people will identify with in an emotional, intellectual or spiritual way. Occasionally, I manage all three with one piece, or as a friend calls it, the "Holy Trinity", which is exceptionally fulfilling. Americymru: The poems in this collection are grouped under various sub-titles (Postulate, Edge, Terminal Side, Opposite Faces, Locus) Care to comment on this grouping? What themes are addressed in these individual sections? Jolen: I wanted to divide my book into sections and selected geometrical terms because I felt they were appropriate for several reasons. If you think of about it, life is a series of lines, arcs and angles. By viewing the world and my poetry in this fashion, it was quite easy to place particular poems within the relevant section. Postulate: (A statement assumed to be true without proof) includes poems that I feel deal with elemental ideals which all humans are aware of on some level, but often lose sight of. Edge: (A segment that helps to make up a face) In this section I have poems that I have written about or for other people Terminal Side: (The side that the measurement of an angle ends at) In this section I have poems about unhealthy relationships. Opposite Faces: (Faces that lie between parallel lines) This section has poems dealing with love and life in the same place but coming at it in different or opposite directions. Locus: (The set that satisfies a given condition) Love poetry or poetry dealing with life-changing events. Positive places, that if we're very fortunate, we get to and remain. And finally, there is Limit: (The actual area of a region) Which I left blank because I believe that we define our own limits. Americymru: Do you have a particular favorite in this collection? Jolen: I would have to say "Sanguine Sea" is my personal favorite in this collection, but there are several that I'm very fond of. Americymru: You have been described as: "a full-blooded Celtic poetess". What do you think about that characterization? Are there particular Celtic influences in your work? Jolen: I love it! Out of all the labels people have tried to assign me, that particular one is the most pleasing to me. Yes, in a great deal of my work you will find Celtic influences. Particularly in poems like "Sanguine Sea" and "In The Shape Of A Hart", which is about a recent spiritual experience I had while on holiday in Scotland. Americymru: Is there any one work that you're particularly proud of or that you particularly like? What is it and why? Jolen: I have a poem entitled "Lessons" and I like it because I think that I have managed to come up with some interesting images, my favorite one being, "sharpen saber and wit on each others whet-bones." Americymru: Do you have future publication plans, if so, what are they? Jolen: In the immediate future, I have poems which will be featured in Sarasvati, Reach, Dawntreader and Twisted Tongue poetry magazines, as well the following anthologies: "Whispers on the Breeze" by United Press, "Tides of Life" by Forward Press, and "Fields of Green" by First Writer Press I am currently working on a novel and a book of short stories that I hope to have published in the not too distant future. I have been compiling a collection of verse, but I don't foresee trying to publish that for a while yet. My work is evolving and I want to be certain that my next book is representative of those changes. Americymru: Any final message for the members and readers of Americymru? Jolen:  Besides telling them to rush right out and buy my book, you mean? Yes, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank UKA Press (www.ukapress.com)for their continued support of my work and excellence in the field. I would also like to thank both you and the readers for their interest and encourage anyone out there who is interested in poetry or writing in general, to go for it. You're only truly limited by what you allow yourself to be. You can email Jolen Whitworth at this address:- jolenwhitworth { at } aol.com The ISBN number of "Every Girl Has Her Limits" is 978-1-9057-9621-2. Interview by Ceri Shaw