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‘Real Cardiff’

Released 22nd July 2004.

Peter Finch’s hugely popular alternative guide to the capital of Wales: “One of the best books I have ever read about a city.” Jan Morris.

Peter Finch discovers the real Cardiff – lost rivers, itinerant poets, the old race courses, the revitalised city centre, the redeveloped Cardiff Bay – as he travels the city from east to west and north to south. This is offbeat topographical writing, guaranteed to enthrall the native, the visitor and the armchair traveller alike.

‘Real’ Series Editor: Peter Finch


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The Real Series

“Well-written and passionate, they’re all intriguing and full of offbeat observations… if you’re looking to get inside the character of any of these places, you’ll find the series perfect.” — Time Out

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‘The Ivy Hides the Fig-ripe Duchess’

Seren is pleased to announce the newest poetry collection by Welsh writer Ellie Evans is released on 13th June 2011, head to the Seren website to get your copy today!

The Ivy Hides the Fig-ripe Duchess is an exhilarating first collection of poems from Ellie Evans. Using a surrealist palette of imagery and a tightly focused idiom, the author takes us on strange journeys:to the post-apocalyptic world of the title poem, or into a skewed 18th century Venice in ‘The Zograscope’. These strange worlds are always to the purpose, they are, as Marianne Moore famously said of poetry ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them.’ We obliquely unearth childhood trauma, fraught or intense relationships and also a singular (and perhaps also Welsh?) delight in rebellion, and in escape through the imagination. Poems like ‘Picnic with Earthquakes’ and ‘Jekyl Island, Georgia’ deftly align exotic locales (Eastern Europe, South East Asia, Greece and the USA,) with intimate states of mind. A fascination with art and history emerge in: ‘A Brief History of Topiary’ and ‘Two Monologues from The Odyssey’. There is also a palpable delight in technique: you will find a sonnet, a villanelle, triolets and a concise free verse where she employs rhyme, half-rhyme, and subtle alliteration.

Seren will keep you posted on reviews and comments on Evans’s poetry collection.

To find out more about Seren and Ellie Evans search our blog or go to our website http://www.serenbooks.com/

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Ellie Evans

Ellie Evans was born in Carmarthen and was educated in Llandeilo and Cardiff. After reading English at Oxford, she worked in publishing and for the Medical Research Council, before living in Hong Kong, teaching English.  She has spent most of her adult life teaching  in London, but now is based in Powys. She began writing poetry six years ago, and has an M.A. in Creative Writing from Bath Spa where she is finishing a Ph.D.  Her poems have been published in several anthologies and in magazines including PNR, Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Red Poets, The Rialto and Acumen .Evans has given readings at the Bath Literature Festival, Bath Poetry Cafe, Dartington’s ‘Ways with Words’ and ‘The Muses’ Workshop’  on the island of Spetses, Greece.

Books by Ellie Evans
The Ivy Hides the Fig-Ripe Duchess

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Book Launch – ‘Evan Walters: Moments of Vision’, Swansea

Join Seren for the Evan Walters: Moments of Vision book launch at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea.
Evan Walters: Moments of Vision which is edited by Barry Plummer, responds to the work of Evan Walters, who perhaps is the great hidden secret of Welsh painting in the twentieth century, an outstanding artist who awaits discovery beyond Wales. Also, enjoy the Walters’ paintings that are displayed in the gallery.
Friday 1st July 7pm, Glynn Vivian Arts Gallery, Alexandra Road, Swansea, SA1 5DZ
Please rsvp Seren at 01656 663 018 or [email protected] All royalties donated to the Noah’s Ark Appeal.

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The Captain’s Tower: Poems for Bob Dylan at 70 – The Troubadour, London

Monday 13th June, 8.00pm. Almost 50 years after the 21-year-old Bob Dylan’s subterranean, homesick, Troubadour-cellar-club debut in 1962 – his first performance this side of the Atlantic – an unmissable gathering of London’s best-known poets meets to launch Seren Books’ The Captain’s Tower: Seventy Poets Celebrate Bob Dylan at Seventy including Roger McGough, Carol Rumens, Roddy Lumsden, Jeremy Reed, Luke Wright, Caroline Bird and many more.

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Grahame Davies at the National Library of Wales

The Dragon and the Crescent: Nine Centuries of Welsh contact with Islam.
Wednesday 8th June 1.15 – 2.15pm National Library’s Drwm venue
The celebrated Welsh author and poet, Dr Grahame Davies, examines Wales’s relationship with Islam. The presentation is held in conjunction with our current exhibition commemorating the 400th anniversary of publishing the King James Bible. Free admission by ticket.

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The Hay Festival

Its Hay time! Seren have a number of authors speaking at Hay this week:
Event 275: Mavis Nicholson talks to Sarah Crompton (What did you do in the War, Mummy?) Thursday 2nd June 2011 6.45pm
Event 291: Brenda Maddox, Peter J Conradi and Tom Bullough (At the Bright Hem of God: Radnorshire Pastoral) Friday 3rd June 2011 10am
Event 340: Grahame Davies talks to Meryl Wyn Davies (The Dragon and the Crescent) Saturday 4th June 2011 10am

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The Poet Laureate presents ‘Poetry Cuts’ in support of the Poetry Book Society

The Poetry Society has recently heard that the Arts Council will withdraw its regualr funding. The Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has invited 30 fellow poets to take part in an evening celebrating the best of contemporary British poetry to benefit the Poetry Book Society.

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 Friday 3rd June 2011 7pm The Logan Hall, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL

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“At the time of the ACE cuts to the PBS and to several much-loved festivals and important publishers of poetry, many poets and readers felt a sense of anger and grief. This event is intended to put a spotlight on the passionate support there is in the UK for our poetry institutions and to share, through poetry and audience, our love for our national art” – Carol Ann Duffy

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Readers include: Elaine Feinstein, David Harsent, George Szirtes, Gillian Clarke, Imtiaz Dharker, Daljit Nagra, Rosie Bailey reading for U A Fanthorpe, Ruth Fainlight, Clare Shaw, Carol Rumens, Patience Agbabi, Annie Freud, Christopher Reid, Mimi Khalvati, Fiona Sampson, Caroline Bird, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Jane Draycott, John Agard, Michael Symmons Roberts, Jacob Sam La-Rose and Luke Wright