Do you write poetry? Would you like to gain insight into other poet’s practices? Then head to the Poetry Wales website where Iris Anne Lewis, along with three other poets reading at this year’s Cheltenham Poetry Festival, share their advice on editing skills, making reading lists, finding inspiration and receiving poems on your senses. Follow this link to find out more https://poetrywales.co.uk/writing-advice-from-cheltenham-poetry-festival/

Iris Anne Lewis is delighted to have three of her poems included in Wave 17 of iamb – poetry seen and heard.

iamb is a poetry web-zine with a difference. It features audio recordings of poets reading their work with the text of the poems accompanying the recording. The audio is a crucial part of the publication of the poem. In order to be selected for the website, poets have to audition by sending a recording of them reading a poem. A successful audition leads to an invitation to submit three poems for inclusion in a future issue (or wave as it is termed on iamb). 

You can listen to Iris reading her poems here. Why not listen to the other fourteen poets also featured in Wave 17 as well?

‘The Light Will Always Return’, Frank McMahon’s third book of poems, will be published in April. Frank, who lives in Cirencester and is a member of Somewhere Else Writers, has won praise for his first two collections, ‘At the Storm’s Edge’  and ‘A Different Land’, and his third collection is eagerly anticipated.

He said, ‘Things that stopped me in my tracks inspired some of the poems in my book, alongside work that celebrates the work of other artists and craftswomen and men. Other poems draw inspiration from the natural world, starting with winter light. There are shadows in the book: loss, environmental concerns, and conflict, but the abiding theme is hope and optimism. These essential qualities of living are there around us but also need to be generated by our resilience and our willingness to work towards protection and restoration.’

‘The Light Will Always Return’ is published by Tim Saunders Publications and will be available in paperback, and hardback from Waterstones, Amazon and other bookshops, and as an e-book.

It is being launched on April 17^th.

Frank will be reading some of his new work at Writers in the Library, Cirencester on June 13^th at 2pm and at Cheltenham Poetry Cafe on April 26^th..

More success for Iris Anne Lewis. Her poem ‘Anglo Saxon Riddle is published in the Oxford School of Poetry Review here .

Iris was recently shortlisted in the Black Bough chap book competition and an interview with her is due to appear in Poetry Wales.

This month’s featured writer is the group’s chairman, Selwyn Morgan, who recently returned from a well-earned sabbatical in the Antipodes and Hong Kong. He’s travelled to the Middle East and the Americas throughout his career.  When he’s not travelling or performing in drama and musical theatre, he writes fiction, short stories and poems. You can read his poem ‘The Serpent Ring’ here.

In 2022 Selwyn’s first novel:- ‘Going Up Camborne Hill‘ was published (available from Amazon Books). It is from this novel that the poem is taken. 

This month’s featured work is by our newest member, Olivia Tuck. Olivia was runner-up in the 2023 Jane Martin Prize for young poets awarded by Girton College Cambridge (see the previous post). She writes deeply about the Autistic female experience and has a short collection of poems; Things Only Borderlines Know,  published by the Cardiff-based small press Black Rabbit Press.

You can read her poem, Doctor E, here.

Two of our members, Iris Anne Lewis and Frank McMahon, have joined forces with Liz Carew of Catchword Writers to provide a monthly programme called ‘Writers in the Library’ which takes place every second Monday of each month in Cirencester’s Bingham Library from 2.00pm. The session lasts an hour and features a talk by a writer followed by an opportunity for audience members briefly to share a reading of examples of their own writing or that of other authors they particularly admire. This month’s guest is the poet Anna Saunders.

Described as ‘a modern myth maker,’ Anna is the author of Communion, (Wild Conversations Press), Struck, (Pindrop Press) Kissing the She Bear, (Wild Conversations Press), Burne Jones and the Fox (Indigo Dreams), Ghosting for Beginners, (Indigo Dreams) and Feverfew (Indigo Dreams).

She is also the Executive Director of Cheltenham Poetry Festival and works as a creative writing tutor and mentor,  communications specialist,  journalist, broadcaster and  copywriter/editor.

Anna’s new book is The Prohibition of Touch. (Indigo Dreams 2022).

Anna will be at the Library on Monday February 12.

Many congratulations to our newest member Olivia Tuck, who has just been announced as second prize winner of the 2023 Jane Martin Poetry Prize, a national poetry competition for young poets, established in 2010 in memory of Girton College alumna, Jane Elizabeth Martin. 

Olivia was awarded the prize for the poems ‘The Obligatory Future Child Poem’ and ‘Mistress of Arts’ (view poems – PDF).

Olivia’s work has been published by the Poetry Society and Broken Sleep, and in several print and online journals. She has been longlisted for the Rebecca Swift Foundation Women Poets’ Prize, and is an associate editor at Tears in the Fence and at Lighthouse. In 2022, she completed UEA’s MA Creative Writing – Poetry course with Distinction. Her pamphlet ‘Things Only Borderlines Know‘ is out now with Black Rabbit Press. Follow on Twitter @livtuckwrites.