New Edition of Hedd Wyn's Poems - An Interview With Daffni Percival of Merilang Press

Daffni Percival has lived in Wales since 1985. She writes poetry and children's books and publishes both from Merilang Press.She lives in an ancient farmhouse with two border collies. two cats. three pet sheep and a dozen or so ducks.She is partly retired but teaches occasional crash courses in Russian, French and Welsh. AmeriCymru spoke to Daffni about Merilang Press and about the recent publication of a new edition of the poems of Hedd Wyn.

Welsh Poetry Competition 2011 - Results!

The Welsh Poetry Competition 2011 organisers have announced the winners of the 5^th international competition and the overall winner was David J Costello for his poem Horseshoe Bat.

This year saw more entries than ever all of which were read by our judge, last years’ winner, Sally Spedding.

She wrote of the winning poem - ‘The exquisite precision of these opening lines perfectly conveys an almost surgical procedure… this is a magical and memorable work…’

The winners were as follows:

1st Prize – Horseshoe Bat by David J Costello
2nd Prize – The Carpenter’s Daughter by Kathy Miles
3rd Prize – Night’s spy-glass by Moira Andrew

Sally also choose another seventeen poems for the ‘specially commended’ section with winners from Wales and the UK, as well as from Florida, USA and Dunedin, New Zealand which once again marks the Welsh Poetry Competition as a truly international event. All winning poems can be viewed on the competition website – www.welshpoetry.co.uk

‘The overall standard was once again excellent and we had a record number of entries again this year. Overseas entries were also up with poets entering from France, Spain, Germany, India, Pakistan, Thailand, China, USA, New Zealand and Australia to name just a few places. Each year the competition continues to grow and we will also be publishing an anthology of all the winning entries from the first five years in the coming weeks’ said Dave Lewis, competition organizer.

To get involved with next years’ competition, buy the anthology or just keep up to date with what we are doing you just need to visit The Welsh Poetry Competition web site and join our mailing list, join our Facebook group or follow us on Twitter.

Competition Website - www.welshpoetry.co.uk
Competition Judge – www.sallyspedding.com

Twitter - @welshpoetrycomp