January 2025

Posted on January 31, 2025January 31, 2025 by Seren Books

Friday Poem – ‘Sir John Soane imagines the Ruins of His yet-to-be-built Building’ by Robert Seatter

Photo depicting the ruined wall and empty window of a crumbling building

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Sir John Soane imagines the Ruins of His yet-to-be-built Building’ by Robert Seatter from his collection The House of Everything.

Sir John Soane imagines the Ruins of His yet-to-be-built Building
Begin with the end:
the ruins, in the picturesque pile
with only time's crenellations
left now in silhouette,
and every last window open
into air. Begin with the trees,
the roots, that slow creep
of moss – they were always there
at the corner of your eye,
and this clearing in the wood
only ever temporary. Begin
with the list of irksome lost things,
the accidents of memoiry
that must somehow be purposeful,
and love's strange collisions
that wake you in the night:
all the things that survive.

Posted on January 24, 2025January 24, 2025 by Seren Books

Friday Poem – ‘Pepper’ by Siobhán Campbell

Close up photo of a pebbled shore with waves lapping in from the sea.

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Pepper’ by Siobhán Campbell from her collection Cross-Talk.

Pepper
Scallups was your word for sliced potato
fried in a medley of lard, scooped
from the corners of pans we kept
and cooled to save the solid sards,
flavoured with whatever had been cooked,
a week of smells in one Friday dinner.
At the shoreline you would skim pebbles;
flatties hipped and skished the water.
Scallops you would name the shells,
that long thin one, brown and doubled over
a white infill. Later I learned, a razor-shell.
Up at Clonallon graveyard you caught rabbit,
skinned them alive with a special knife.
They kicked to scald but you were fearless.
A pink whiteness would be tendered bright
in a pan where scaul becomes a rabbit paw,
its descender die still missing from the dinner.
We’d watch you fold in scallions with the mash
as if you made colcannon. I know, if they read
your DNA, it could take years to isolate the point
at which you learned to say the a in salt
the way it made a holy sea of spice.

Posted on January 10, 2025January 10, 2025 by Seren Books

Friday Poem – ‘Birch’ by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams

Photo of bare trunks of silver birch standing in the snow.

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘Birch’ by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams from her sequence ‘The Tree Calendar’ republished in The Little Hours: New and Selected Poems.

Birch
December 24th – January 20th
After Twelfth Night comes the reality
of winter. When the greenery’s stripped down
it’s barefaced, blowing under the door.
Mean days dragging out a fraction more
before dark, make our myth of spring
ridiculous. I walk out into the stark
endless moment of January.
Old snow slumps in the hedge,
stretching the fields
wet to the birchwood, raw
black tangle against the grey.
Mud ruts, brown ice under my boot
snaps and seeps as I trudge up
to the sad ranks of trees, the thin
skin birches in their thaw.
These brittle twigs swept clear of leaves
whipping along the light,
points of dark bud concealing green,
I’ll tie a bundle to my broom, for flight:
no shelter here, the rain falls through
this frostwood, the sky stares between.
The bramble jags, the stag horns of the scrub
bad musk of leafmould, in the dusk
that stirs behind my shoulder.
Birch stems lean to the loud stream
crowding beneath the wind,
thrashing their rods at winter stumps,
at the cracked, dimwit days.
Think of the woods brushed with a green haze.
Think of the covered hills
filling with cleaner light, and a gap
in the clouds for something to glance through.
I stoop in a cold shade
gathering twigs for a journey

This September, you’re invited to explore the unseen and the unsettling. From dark and menacing landscapes to the everyday terrors of domestic settings disturbingly close to home, these stories will horrify and delight in equal measure. Be prepared, for ‘this is a land of ancient power, and even more ancient beings...’ Pre-order the latest addition to our Welsh Gothic series, ‘Giving the Darkness Life’ on our website now.
.
Stories by @markblayney1, Mary-Ann Constantine, @damianwalforddavies, Caradoc Evans, Dorothy K. Haynes, @lucie_mckhardy Arthur Machen, Elinor Mordaunt, John Llewellyn Probert, L.T.C. Rolt, @priyasharma1000, Edward Thomas, Elizabeth Walter and D.P. Watt
.
@inpressbooks @books.wales #WelshGothic #SerenBooks #NationalYearOfReading2026 #SpookySeason #AutumnBooks

39 5

Open post by serenbooks with ID 17986209695862449

This September, you’re invited to explore the unseen and the unsettling. From dark and menacing landscapes to the everyday terrors of domestic settings disturbingly close to home, these stories will horrify and delight in equal measure. Be prepared, for ‘this is a land of ancient power, and even more ancient beings...’ Pre-order the latest addition to our Welsh Gothic series, ‘Giving the Darkness Life’ on our website now.
.
Stories by @markblayney1, Mary-Ann Constantine, @damianwalforddavies, Caradoc Evans, Dorothy K. Haynes, @lucie_mckhardy Arthur Machen, Elinor Mordaunt, John Llewellyn Probert, L.T.C. Rolt, @priyasharma1000, Edward Thomas, Elizabeth Walter and D.P. Watt
.
@inpressbooks @books.wales #WelshGothic #SerenBooks #NationalYearOfReading2026 #SpookySeason #AutumnBooks

We had a wonderful time listening to @megan.c.hayes talking about her memoir ‘Glimmering’ with Kath Little from @bardic_books at St Illtud’s church in Llantwit Major on Saturday. Diolch yn fawr to everyone who joined us and to Kath for hosting! Copies of ‘Glimmering’ are available now in your local bookshop.
.
#Glimmering #Memoir #SerenBooks #IndependentBookshop #NationalYearOfReading2026

57 7

Open post by serenbooks with ID 18025115786906095

We had a wonderful time listening to @megan.c.hayes talking about her memoir ‘Glimmering’ with Kath Little from @bardic_books at St Illtud’s church in Llantwit Major on Saturday. Diolch yn fawr to everyone who joined us and to Kath for hosting! Copies of ‘Glimmering’ are available now in your local bookshop.
.
#Glimmering #Memoir #SerenBooks #IndependentBookshop #NationalYearOfReading2026

Ebooks available now! ‘In Search of Sea Dragons’, ‘Muslim Wales’ and ‘The Waters That Raised Us’ are now available from all major ebook retailers meaning you can take them with you on the go 🎉 Do you prefer reading ebooks, print books or both?
.
@severn.sea.fossils @azimwales @tayloredmonds #Ebooks #Kindle #SerenBooks #BooksFromWales #LoveReading

31 5

Open post by serenbooks with ID 17932504218126661

Ebooks available now! ‘In Search of Sea Dragons’, ‘Muslim Wales’ and ‘The Waters That Raised Us’ are now available from all major ebook retailers meaning you can take them with you on the go 🎉 Do you prefer reading ebooks, print books or both?
.
@severn.sea.fossils @azimwales @tayloredmonds #Ebooks #Kindle #SerenBooks #BooksFromWales #LoveReading

🏆@maggiepoet continues her winning streak having won the Guyana Prize for Literature Poetry Award with her collection ‘I Sing to the Greenhearts’! Available now in bookshops nationwide and on our website!
.
#AwardWinning #GuyanaPrize #Poetry #PoetryBooks #SerenBooks

51 2

Open post by serenbooks with ID 17866057905646433

🏆@maggiepoet continues her winning streak having won the Guyana Prize for Literature Poetry Award with her collection ‘I Sing to the Greenhearts’! Available now in bookshops nationwide and on our website!
.
#AwardWinning #GuyanaPrize #Poetry #PoetryBooks #SerenBooks

Follow on Instagram

Sign up to our newsletter

Sign up to our newsletter