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A Christmas treat – Mystery Book Bundles

Unless you’re one of Santa’s particularly jolly elves, we imagine the countdown to Christmas might be a rather stressful experience. With that in mind, we’ve prepared some mystery book bundles – the ideal affordable self-gift! (Or, if you’re feeling particularly generous, a gift for someone else.)
Coming in Fiction and Poetry varieties, these lovingly gift-wrapped parcels contain three books from our fantastic Seren list – and are just £9.99.
For the Fiction Bundle, we’ve chosen a mix of enthralling literary novels and absorbing short stories. No matter what you get, you can expect to be glued to your comfiest chair for at least a few days.
For the Poetry Bundle, we’ve selected a blend of exciting debuts and powerful works from established poets. We can’t tell you what you’re likely to receive as it would ruin the surprise, but we have a wonderful mix of things ready to wrap up. 
Find our Mystery Fiction Bundle and Mystery Poetry Bundle on the Seren website – while stocks last.
 
 
 
 
 

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A glittering new festive pamphlet: Twelve Poems for Christmas

Twelve Poems for Christmas festive pamphlet

‘It’s not Christmas, it’s only November!’ we hear you cry. Well, we can’t help but feel a little festive as the new Twelve Poems for Christmas pamphlet is now available to pre-order.

Last year’s Christmas Poetry Competition was a huge success. Judge Amy Wack, Seren’s Poetry Editor, states:

The challenge of a successful Christmas poem is the same as a challenge of a ‘regular’ poem: both to embrace tradition and subvert it, to resist cliché.  I was looking for variation of tone, manner and address, for brevity, and for a certain sparkling something, suitable for the season.

The submissions certainly didn’t disappoint. From the entries Amy compiled a shortlist of twelve outstanding festive poems, and we have combined these to create the Twelve Poems for Christmas poetry pamphlet:

Pippa Little
‘St. Leonore and the Robin’
Winner

Helen Overell
‘Camel’

Cathy Bryant
‘Noticing Cards While Eating Stuffing’

Alexandra Davis
‘Offering’

Will Johnson
‘What Wish’

Sarah Rowland Jones
‘Gabriel’s Greeting’

Gina Wilson
‘A Child for Our World’

Nancy Charley
‘On Losing my Voice at Christmas’

Nicola Healey
‘Two Pheasants’

Philip Rush
‘Daylight is in Short Supply’

Sarah Westcott
‘Guardians’

Wendy Klein
‘The Usual Suspects’

 

The Twelve Poems for Christmas pamphlet is publishing on 01 December, but you can pre-order your copy now. Why not post it to someone you love instead of a card? That is, if you can bear to part with it…

Don’t forget: you can claim 20% off when you become a registered user on our website.

 

 

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Friday Poem – ‘Lear Father’, Paul Deaton

Our Friday Poem this week is ‘Lear Father’ from Paul Deaton’s recently published debut, A Watchful Astronomy.

Paul Deaton A Watchful AstronomyWelsh-raised and Bristol-based, Paul Deaton has produced a debut collection full of poems that are quietly precise, yet full of powerful emotion.
Deaton’s poems are finely attuned and alert to the tensions in relationships, partly attributable to a difficult father figure, ‘like a wounded bear’, who haunts much of this book – including our featured poem today, ‘Lear Father’. Nature is also a guiding presence in this collection, and is often embodied by a wintery landscape.
A Watchful Astronomy is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Winter 2017.

 

Friday Poem Lear Father Paul Deaton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Watchful Astronomy is available from the Seren website: £9.99

Join our free Book Club for 20% off every book you buy from us.

 

 

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Free poetry alert – enjoy samples from all our 2017 collections

Free poetry Seren sampler 2017

Who doesn’t love a freebie? We’ve put together something a little special for  all you poetry lovers – the Seren Poetry Sampler 2017. This free PDF is now available to download, and contains a free poem from each of our 2017 collections.

It also contains an exclusive 30% discount code – so when you inevitably fall in love with all ten books, you won’t break the bank.

Free poetry pamphlet

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are a number of poems from striking debut collections: ‘Lake Fever’ from Polly Atkin’s Basic Nest Architecture, ‘The Coffin Hut’ from Paul Deaton’s PBS-Recommended debut A Watchful Astronomy, and ‘The Walking Wed’, Emily Blewitt’s Walking Dead-inspired poem from This Is Not A Rescue.

Experienced poets Siobhán Campbell, Martyn Crucefix, and Graham Mort feature too, with poems from fresh new collections: ‘Why Islanders Don’t Kiss Hello’ (Heat Signature), ‘R-O-M-J-X’ (The Lovely Disciplines), ‘Froglet’ (Black Shiver Moss), alongside ‘Closing Down’ from Robert Walton’s long-awaited second collection, Sax Burglar Blues.

There are also poems from two new pamphlets: ‘The Birds’ from Brood by Wales Book of the Year winner Rhian Edwards, and ‘Howlet’ by promising young poet Yvonne Reddick, from Translating Mountains, winner of the 2016 Mslexia Poetry Prize.

A final treat is ‘Hare’, a poem by Carolyn Jess-Cooke from the Writing Motherhood anthology, which brings together poetry, essays and interviews on the subjects of motherhood and creativity.

 

Download the Seren Poetry Sampler 2017 for free from our website.

 

 

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Win a copy of Dark Land, Dark Skies by Martin Griffiths

This cover shows a photo of a star filled sky over the dark silhouette of a castle. The text reads: Dark Land, Dark Skies. Martin Griffiths.

Enter our giveaway to win a copy of the hardback edition of Dark Land, Dark Skies, Martin Griffiths’ fascinating mythological astronomy book.
To enter, simply sign up to the Seren newsletter before 1st December:https://www.serenbooks.com/newsletter/signup
About Dark Land, Dark Skies:The classically named constellations and stars of the night sky haven’t always been the province of Greek and Roman gods. Ancient peoples around the world have looked up and added their particular myths to the heavens, only to have them subsumed by the Classics as the science of astronomy developed.In Dark Land, Dark Skies, Martin Griffiths reclaims the night sky for the Welsh peoples by repopulating it with the myths superseded by classical astronomy, particularly the mythical heroes and heroines of The Mabinogion.
 
The winner of this giveaway will be chosen at random from all our email subscribers on 1st December 2017, so make sure you sign up to Seren News before this deadline to be in with a chance of winning.
Feeling generous? Why not invite your friends to enter, by signing up using the link below:http://serenbooks.com/newsletter/signup
 
Congratulations to last month’s winner, who is now enjoying a copy of Sugar Hall by Tiffany Murray.
 
 
 

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Friday Poem – ‘The Romantic’, Katrina Naomi

Friday Poem The Romantic by Katrina Naomi

Our Friday Poem this week is ‘The Romantic’, from The Way the Crocodile Taught Me by Katrina Naomi, who has just been shortlisted for B O D Y’s ‘Best of the Net’.

The Way the Crocodile Taught Me is a heartfelt and tragi-comic portrayal of a fraught childhood and adolescence. Central to the book are two sequences: one about a quick-tempered stepfather – a 17-stone brute, “mostly in a temper”, and the other about a kindly but also comically old-fashioned grandmother.
‘The Romantic’ recalls the poet’s lost father, and the deep emotional fissures he left behind.

 

 

Katrina Naomi poem The Romantic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Way the Crocodile Taught Me is available from the Seren website: £9.99

Join our free Book Club for 20% off every book you buy from us.

 

 

 

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Cath Drake wins Second Place in the Resurgence Prize

Cath Drake, author of Sleeping with Rivers (Mslexia Pamphlet Prize winner, 2013), is the Second Prize winner in the Resurgence Prize.
he Resurgence Prize with The Poetry School is the world’s first major award for ecopoetry. With a first prize of £5,000 for the best single poem embracing ecological themes, the award ranks amongst the most prestigious of any English language single poem competition.
See the full list of winning and shortlisted poets on the Resurgence Prize website.
 
 

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Friday Poem – ‘Sax Burglar Blues’, Robert Walton

Friday Poem Sax Burglar Blues Robert Walton

This week our Friday Poem is the title number from Robert Walton’s brand new collection, Sax Burglar Blues.

Not so much a discovery as a re-discovery, Robert Walton’s new book of poems, Sax Burglar Blues, is his first full collection since winning a Welsh Arts Council Prize in the ’70s. After a working life as a teacher, Walton has resurrected his artistic gifts, and years of experience give his poetry both a spiky mien and an artful complexity. Subjects include: woodlice, jazz, teachers, grandparents, a canary who runs for President, Sisley’s lovely painting of the Gower, the iconoclastic poet John Tripp, a night bus named after Dusty Springfield, a Dad who loves Cardiff City, the annoying closure of bookshops and much more.
A guest at last night’s First Thursday event at the Chapter Arts Centre, Robert treated the audience to a live performance of ‘Sax Burglar Blues’, complete with saxophone solos. Scroll down to see for yourself.

 

 

Robert Walton Sax Burglar Blues

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sax Burglar Blues is available from the Seren website: £9.99

Join our free Book Club for 20% off every book you buy from us.

 

 

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Katrina Naomi nominated for B O D Y Best of the Net

B O D Y  have just unveiled their list of nominees for the 2017 Best of the Net Anthology, and Seren’s Katrina Naomi is in the running for her poem ‘The Reveal’. Katrina’s most recent poetry collection is The Way the Crocodile Taught Me.
See the full list of nominees for Poetry, Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction on the B O D Y website.
 
 
 

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Friday Poem – ‘Intruder’, Mike Jenkins

Friday Poem Intruder Mike Jenkins

Our Friday Poem this week, in time for Halloween, is sure to give you a bit of a chill: ‘Intruder’, from Mike Jenkins’ 1995 collection, This House, My Ghetto.

Mike Jenkins This House My GhettoIn This House, My Ghetto we see a post-modern, post-industrial landscape – far different from the Wales of postcards – subject to the whims of petty bureaucrats. Jenkins makes room for eccentric petrol pump attendants, beleaguered immigrants, odd lodgers, famous footballers and ghosts. He doesn’t flinch from the bleak streets of ‘Gurnos Shops’ where a local ‘takes his beer gut for a walk’, and even a mountain has its say about pesky tourists, yet his ascerbic humour and energy frame the outrage, and there are plenty of poems that, in contrast, praise and celebrate.
In ‘Intruder’, a quiet street is assaulted by the oppressive winter cold, and by a mysterious figure who interrupts the peaceful suburban landscape – ‘a territory he’d like to claim’.

 

 

Intruder Mike Jenkins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This House, My Ghetto is available from the Seren website: £5.95

Join our free Book Club for 20% off every book you buy from us.