Graham Mort’s collection of short stories Touch has been short-listed for the Edge Hill University short story prize 2011.
Touch includes the Bridport prize winning story ‘The Prince’, which was described by novelist Tracy Chevalier as “..the writing is word perfect..”.
From a young child adrift on an ice-filled lake to an ageing farmer facing life alone, the twenty-one stories display a deep sensitivity to both the natural world and to human relationships. In skilfully crafted prose, vivid with detail, Mort examines the strength and fragility of life and the ties that hold us within it.
See the Edge Hill Univeristy Short Story Prize 2011 shortlist – click here
John Haynes, Fiona Sampson and Tim Liardet, Lauderdale House, London
Thursday 12th May, 8.00 pm. Three Seren poets will be reading as part of the ‘Four Poets’ event at Lauderdale House in May. John Haynes, Fiona Sampson and Tim Liardet will be joined at the event by Carole Satyamurti.
Tickets: £5.00/Concessions: Concession: £3.00Concessions are available for students, people on benefit and over 60s. Proof must be provided when collecting tickets.
Lauderdale House, Waterlow Park, Highgate Hill, London N6 5HG Telephone: 020 8348 8716
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.lauderdalehouse.co.uk
Bruce Cardwell launches Noteworthy: Images of Welsh Music
Bruce Cardwell launches his latest book Noteworthy: Images of Welsh Music at Pontardawe Arts Cenntre, Swansea.
Noteworthy is one man’s view of the acoustic music scene in Wales, illustrated with black and white photography to present the musicians in context in their surroundings.
Join Bruce for an evening of music with harpist Delyth Jenkins and her daughter, fiddle player Angharad Sian from Calan. Enjoy the exhibition from the Noteworthy project, with a glass of wine.
Tuesday 10th May 2011 6pm
Lorraine Bewsey: Olympians and Others exhibition at Cynon Valley and Gallery, Aberdare
Mavis Nicholson will be opening an exhibition of new work by portrait artist Lorraine Bewsey in the Cynon Valley Museum and Gallery in Aberdare at 7.00pm on Friday 6th May.
Entitled ‘Olympians and Others’, the exhibition features the first set in a series of portraits of Welsh Olympic athletes which Lorraine is working on in the run-up to 2012. The exhibition runs until 25th June.
For more information contact Lorraine Bewsey: 01639 730108 / 0787 985 7975 Email:[email protected]
First Thursday poetry reading tonight with Nerys Williams
Join Seren at Chapter Arts Centre tonight with guest poet Nerys Williams, who will be reading from her debut collection of poetry Sound Archive. Sound Archive is the strikingly original first collection of poems from Nerys Williams. Using formal strategies similar to modernist painting: abstraction, dislocation, surrealist juxtaposition, the poet conjures a complex music, intriguing narratives, and poems full of atmosphere that query identity, gender, and the dream of art as a vehicle for emotion and meaning.
Followed by Open Mic – Thursday 5th May, 7.30pm £2 Media Point Room, Chapter Arts Centre.
Pascale Petit Exciting US Book Tour
Seren is proud to announce that Pascale Petit is touring What the Water Gave Me: Poems After Frida Kahlo in the US!
Petit’s collection of poetry was shortlisted for the T.S Eliot Prize 2010 and long listed for Wales Book of the Year 2011.
Petit’s itinerary is;
Saturday 30 April, 6.00pm. Cornelia St Café, NYC.
Mark Doty & Pascale Petit
29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY 10014
Phone: 212 989 9319. Email: [email protected] Website: www.corneliastreetcafe.com
Thursday 5 May (tbc). Metta Theatre, Taos, New Mexico.
Veronica Golos, Andrea Watson and Pascale Petit reading for Cinco de Mayo
1470 Paseo Del Pueblo Sur, El Prado, New Mexico 87529
Monday 9 May, 7.30pm. Moonday Poetry at Village Books, LA.
Lois P. Jones & Pascale Petit (illustrated reading)
1049 Swarthmore Ave., Pacific Palisades, California
Phone: (310) 454 4063 Email: [email protected] Website: www.moondaypoetry.com
Tuesday 10 May, 7.30pm. Poetry Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California.
Rebecca Forest and Pascale Petit
Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz
Phone: (831) 464-8983 Email: [email protected] Website: www.baymoon.com/~poetrysantacruz
For more information on Pascale Petit and her poetry collection click the tag ‘Pascale Petit’ or read more on our website www.serenbooks.com
Good luck and congratulations to Pascale Petit!
Ronnie Wood writes a foreword for ‘The Captain’s Tower: Seventy Poets Celebrate Bob Dylan at Seventy’
Ronnie Wood has added a touch of rock ‘n’ roll to a future Seren publication, by writing a foreword for the eagerly awaited book The Captain’s Tower: Seventy Poets Celebrate Bob Dylan at Seventy.
Unbelievably, Bob Dylan is 70 in May. The Captain’s Tower is a birthday present anthology of poems concerned with Dylan’s life, his work, and his cultural impact. One of the most distinguished lyricists of the post-war period, Dylan has entertained and inspired poets, writers generally and millions of ordinary fans with the imagery, wit and technique of his writing, be it in songs of love, protest, faith or pure Dylan-ness.
In this book the poets answer back in a response to Dylan’s creativity, capacity to inspire and his enormous influence on culture and writing. Here are poems by Allen Ginsberg, Lachlan Mackinnon, Glyn Maxwell, Matthew Sweeney, Jeremy Reed, Linda Chase, Linda France, Mark Ford, Roger McGough, Roddy Lumsden, Paul Muldoon, Simon Armitage, Caroline Bird. Peter Finch, Luke Wright.
There is bound to be a huge media response to Dylan’s birthday and this will be part of it – a must for Dylan fans and poetry readers alike.
Ruth Bidgood wins the Roland Mathias Prize 2011
Ruth Bidgood wins the Roland Mathias Prize 2011 with her collection of poetry Time Being, published by Seren (2009).
The £3,000 prize was awarded to Ruth Bidgood at ceremony in Roland Mathias’ home town of Brecon, supported by BBC Wales and hosted by Nicola Heywood Thomas, presenter of Radio Wales’ Arts Show.
In future years, it is to be incorporated into the Wales Book of the Year.
Congratulations Ruth!
Ruth Bidgood with editor Amy Wack at the prize giving event in Brecon.
Pascale Petit Published in the US
Pascale Petit’s latest collection of poetry What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo has now been published by Black Lawrence Press in the US (April, 2011). Pascale Petit is currently touring the US, she is reading at the Bowery Poetry Club, New York City – Saturday 16th April 6pm. Pascale’s collection is still available to buy in the UK.
For more information about Petit’s poetry collection and Petit the author, read ‘Seren Authors’ on our blog or check out the Seren website.
‘What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Khalo’
Author: Pascale Petit
SHORTLISTED FOR THE T.S ELIOT PRIZE 2010
LONG LISTED FOR WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2011
“Pascale’s poems are as fresh as paint, and make you look all over again at Frida and her brilliant and tragic life.” Jackie Kay, The Observer
“Poems about paintings rarely set off fireworks, but this is ekphrasis with a difference: Petit speaks in Kahlo’s voice with eerie believability, animating her paintings with a behind-the-scenes narrative of romantic and reproductive woes, chronic pain after a bus crash, and the occasional moment of joy. ‘Whenever we make love, you say/it’s like fucking a crash –/I bring the bus with me into the bedroom’ (‘Remembrance of an Open Wound’)” Time Out London
What the Water Gave Me contains fifty-two poems in the voice of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Some of the poems are close interpretations of Kahlo’s work, while others are parallels or version homages where Petit draws on her experience as a visual artist to create alternative ‘paintings’ with words. More than just a verse biography, this collection explores how Kahlo transformed trauma into art after the artist’s near-fatal bus accident. Petit, with her vivid style, her feel for nature and her understanding of pain and redemption, fully inhabits Kahlo’s world. Each poem is an evocation of “how art works on the pain spectrum”, laced with splashes of ferocious colour.
“Their apparent shared sensibility makes the ventriloquism of these poems entirely unforced, and while Kahlo’s voice is subtly distinguished from Petit’s own, both women have a way of taking painful, private experiences and transmuting them, through imagery, into something that has the power of folklore. They capture the unsettling spirit of Frida Kahlo and her work perfectly.”Poetry London
“No other British poet I am aware of can match the powerful mythic imagination of Pascale Petit.” Les Murray, Times Literary Supplement
Pascale Petit’s latest collection of poetry ‘What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo’ has now been published by Black Lawrence Press in the US (April, 2011).
