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Friday Poem – ‘Extremities’, Claire Williamson

Tonight Claire Williamson will be reading alongside fellow Seren poets Elizabeth Parker and Ross Cogan, and three Parthian poets, for Cardiff Book Festival’s Friday Night Poetry Party. In anticipation, our Friday Poem is ‘Extremities’ from Claire’s recently published collection, Visiting the Minotaur.

Visiting the Minotaur Claire Williamson‘Claire Williamson’s poems are beguiling hybrids – self-assured yet emotionally raw, mysterious yet not precious, meditations of wonder and exorcisms of grief.’
– Michel Faber

In Visiting the Minotaur, Williamson’s inventive and intensely felt collection, the poet must enter a labyrinth of her own complicated family history, a history beset with secrets and lies, in order to come to terms with her own identity.  She borrows from myths, histories, careful observations of nature, of city life, in order to fashion her artful meditations on experience and mortality.

 

Claire Williamson Friday Poem Extremities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visiting the Minotaur is available from the Seren website: £9.99

Create your free Seren account and enjoy 20% off every book you buy direct from us.

 

 

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January Sale: 50% off all Seren books

January Sale 50% off

The big January sale has now begun – all our books are 50% off for one week only.

Seren January Sale 50% off

The time for gift giving might be over but all that means is you have the perfect excuse to treat yourself instead.

If you’re looking for a new novel to grip you, we suggest Jayne Joso’s critically acclaimed My Falling Down House, a story of modern Japanese identity.

Tony Curtis’ New & Selected collection, From the Fortunate Isles, is a must-read for poetry lovers, and The Other Tiger, the new bilingual anthology of South and Latin American poetry translated by Richard Gwyn, will open up a new continent of undiscovered riches for you.

For nature lovers we recommend Iolo Williams’ Wild Places: Wales’ Top 40 Nature Sites – this is a book to get you out of the house, making the most of the beautiful wildlife sites within reach.

Explore our Poetry, Fiction and Non-Fiction categories, where all our books are half price until midnight on Friday 13th January.

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Author Appearances at the Seren Christmas Pop-Up Shop

chapter pop-up shop author appearances

The Seren pop-up bookshop is returning to Chapter, Cardiff, for its third year. You’ll find us in Chapter’s entrance hall, Friday 9th to Monday 12th December.

Come and have a browse of our books, take advantage of free Christmas gift wrapping, and chat with Seren staff about publishing, writing, reading – and your love of books. We look forward to seeing you!

When: 9-12 December, 10am–8pm
Where: Chapter Arts Centre, 40 Market Road, Cardiff, CF5 1QE

Seren authors will also be stopping by, so why not come along and grab a special signed Christmas gift or two?

author-appearances-chapter-pop-up-16

 

Peter Finch will be joining us on Saturday. A poet, author and critic, Peter is author of the hugely popular Real Cardiff trilogy, and series editor for the Real Series. He has published numerous poetry collections, including perennial bestseller Zen Cymru, and his Selected Later Poems. His latest book, The Roots of Rock, from Cardiff to Mississippi and Back, explores the evolution of rock and popular music, and is the perfect gift for the music lover in your life.

David Foster-Morgan will be coming to the pop-up shop on Sunday. David has been widely published in a number of journals including Poetry Wales, Envoi, Smiths Knoll and The Interpreter’s House, and was recently shortlisted in the Times Literary Supplement Poetry Competition. Masculine Happiness is his innovative debut collection, and signed copies will be available if you come along at 12.

 

We look forward to seeing you at the Seren Christmas pop-up shop!

 

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National Poetry Day 2016: All you need to know

National Poetry Day is an annual celebration of poetry and all things poetic. Started in 1994 by William Sieghart, it has engaged millions of people across the country with reading, writing and listening to poetry.

This year, National Poetry Day is taking place on Thursday 6th October. The 2016 theme is Messages – think texts, emails, letters, cards, speech; sad messages, hopeful ones, happy messages and even unspoken ones. They could be spooky, paranormal messages or those you hear every day, such as “hello” and “goodbye”.

Say it with a poem – be inspired by this years theme of Messages, and write a poem of your own to express yourself!

poetry-book-coverposterfinalupdate2-675x1024Download this year’s FREE poetry eBook – Messages: National Poetry Day 2016 is a free anthology of wonderful Messages poems – old and new. The fourteen poets in this eBook (created by MacMillan Children’s Books with Forward Arts Foundation) are all National Poetry Ambassadors.
Featured poets: Deborah Alma, Liz Brownlee, Paul Cookson, Sally Crabtree, Joseph Coelho, Matt Goodfellow, Sophie Herxheimer, Rachel McCrum, Brian Moses, Michaela Morgan, Joshua Seigal, Roger Stevens and Indigo Williams.

Download your free copy of the National Poetry Day 2016 anthology here.

Get involved! Attend one (or more) of the many National Poetry Day events happing all over the UK.
There are loads of events happening on and around National Poetry Day, 6th October, including two of our own:

First Thursday: New Fiction and Poetry at Chapter, Cardiff
Seren’s monthly celebration of new poetry and fiction returns after the summer break. Join us for readings from our special guests and then the famous open mic.
Cardiff poet and author Peter Finch presents: The Roots of Rock, from Cardiff to Mississippi and Back, and Jayne Joso reads from her new novel, set in the outskirts of tokyo: My Falling Down House.

Berkhamsted Waterstones: Caroline Smith, Graham Clifford & Rosie Shepperd
Celebrate National Poetry Day at Berkhamsted Waterstones with an evening of poetry readings, featuring three Seren poets: Caroline Smith (The Immigration Handbook), Graham Clifford (The Hitting Game) and Rosie Shepperd (The Man at the Corner Table).

Take a look at the National Poetry Day events map and go along to anything that catches your eye.

Take advantage of free online resources – There are loads of resources on the National Poety Day website, including advice on how to get your school enjoying poetry, news, and free poems to read and share. Take a look here.

 

Seren’s own celebrations will kick off with a flash poetry sale – keep an eye on our website (or social media channels) on 6th October to take advantage of our special National Poetry Day book offers!

 

 

 

 

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Friday Poem – ‘A Pembrokeshire Artist’, Tony Curtis

A Pembrokeshire Artist Tony Curtis Llangwm

This week we have a treat for you – our Friday Poem is one of the new poems from Tony Curtis’ forthcoming From the Fortunate Isles: New and Selected Poems (Seren, October 2016).

From the Fortunate Isles: New and Selected Poems, Tony CurtisFrom the Fortunate Isles, published in celebration of the author’s 70th year, features poems from ten of Curtis’ published collections as well as a substantial number of new poems. This is a poet whose themes and variations remain consistent: a profound interest in the wars of the last century, an abiding fascination for all art forms, particularly painting and poetry, tender attachments to family, and (most evident in the poem below), a deep affection for his roots in West Wales.

 

A Pembrokeshire Artist
John Knapp Fisher (1931 -2015)

An evening with the rain coming in,
that sea so cold and unsettled, a heavy graphite,
you’d not have gone out with your mackerel lines
in the Viking or any of her successors
from the stone-brick embrace of Porthgain.

We’ve eaten our fill at your wake, John,
the Sloop Inn squeezed tight
with suits, black ties and memories.
Wives, patrons, grandchildren.
Photos of you through all seven ages on the screen.

Inland to Wolf ’s Castle and as far south as the cathedral
the farms, haggards and holiday lets
shrug down for the cold night.
You’d have worked to conjure the reluctant light
discovered in them under this empting, moonless sky.

And the first scurp coming would have dabbed
your paper, blossomed and been coaxed,
smudged, into the finished sketch.
Now the county will have to sing its own spirit,
compose its own shape, keep its own watch.

 

If you would like to listen to Tony read from his forthcoming collection and other books in his native Pembrokeshire, don’t miss his event at the Llangwm Literary Festival, Saturday 12th August. More details here.

You can buy copies of Tony Curtis’ poetry collections, anthologies he has edited, critical essays, and other writing direct from us (20% off for Book Club Members):
Crossing Over
Heaven’s Gate
Tokens for the Foundlings (ed Tony Curtis)
After the First Death (ed Tony Curtis)
Wales at War
Real South Pembrokeshire
Keep an eye out on the Seren website – Tony’s new collection, From the Fortunate Isles: New and Selected Poems, is coming soon…

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Gloriously gothic book launch: Bethany W. Pope in Cardiff

Gloriously gothic book launch Bethany W Pope Cardiff

Join us for a night of gothic romance as Bethany W. Pope reads from Masque, her rich and psychological re-telling of Gaston Leroux’s classic, The Phantom of the Opera.

The event is at the new Octavo’s Book Cafe & Wine Bar in Cardif Bay, Wednesday 22 June, 5:00-7:00pm, and is free for all to attend.
Bring your friends, have a glass of something decadent, and listen to the story unfold.

Bethany W. Pope launch Cardiff

Tell us you’ll be there! Click ‘going’ on the Facebook event page or RSVP by email to: [email protected]

About Masque:
Masque is a richly gothic retelling of Gaston Leroux’s phantom of the opera story by debut novelist Bethany W Pope. Centre stage is promising young singer Christine, who, despite being devoted to her art, attracts the attention of both the Phantom (Erik), and rich Parisian theatre owner Raoul.

The intensely ambitious Christine finds herself caught between the twin evils of the Phantom’s murderous pursuit of artistic perfection and Raoul’s ‘romantic’ vision of her as a bourgeois wife. Her own desire to follow her operatic career becomes her guiding light, but none of the three leading characters can control the directions in which their passions lead them, while the beautiful masked skull of the opera house itself looms large over their respective fates. The resulting mix of love, rage, art and murderous intent, is explosive.

Love, lust, adventure, romance, and the monstrous nature of unfulfilled creativity await you here.

Everyone wears a mask. Look beneath it, if you dare.

 

 

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St Ives Residential Course 2017

Kim Moore David Tait poetry course 2017

Kim Moore: St Ives Residential Poetry Course 2017

“After a sell-out course in 2016 in St Ives, I’m really pleased to announce that I’ll be co-tutoring another residential poetry course at Treloyhan Manor Hotel in St Ives, from the 20th-26th February 2017.  I’m very excited to announce that my co-tutor this year will be the fabulous poet David Tait.…”

Find out more about the St Ives poetry course on Kim Moore’s blog.

 

Source: St Ives Residential Course 2017

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Nerys Williams Reads From ‘Sound Archive’

Nerys Williams will read from her first poetry collection, Sound Archive, at The Boar House, Laugharne, Monday 23rd May 2011 7pm.

To find out more about Nerys Williams the author and her first poetry collection published by Seren, click the tagged ‘Nerys Williams’ or go to our website – www.serenbooks.com – to find out more!

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Nia Williams, ‘The Colour of Grass’, Book Signing

Nia Williams author of new fantastic novel, The Colour of Grass, is holding a book signing at Waterstones in Cardiff on Saturday 21st May 2011 at 1pm. 

To find out more about Nia Williams the author or the novel’s synopsis, there is information on her if you click the tagged ‘Nia Williams’ or check the seren site – www.serenbooks.com – to read more about her and her work.