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Seren News - February 2013
Living in Wales by David Hurn named in the best top 50 Black + White Photography books
 Black + White Photography magazine have named Living in Wales by Magnum photographer David Hurn in their top 50 black and white photography books.Living in Wales is an album of one hundred and one duotone portraits of people who, in the words of David Hurn have enriched my life and that of Wales. It is a roster of the famous and distinguished in the fields of science, business, the arts, sport, the law, health, media, politics and religion. ISBN: 1854113399 Hardback 25.00 |
Seren author Cynan Jones long-listed for the Sunday Times Short Story Award.
| Bird Blood Snow is available from the Seren website for 8.99 No matter how you build them, the world will come crashing against your fences. |
| Christopher Meredith has a new poetry collection Air Histories out with Seren in June 2013. Seren published his fourth novel The Book of Idiots in 2012, described by the ShortList Magazine as "...a darkly comic triumph full of uncomfortable truths" |
Douglas Houston 1947-2013
We were sad to hear of the death of the fine poet Douglas Houston and thank his widow, Lynn, for permission to use the poem 'Welsh Dream TV', from the collection The Welsh Book of the Dead , as Poem of the Month (see below) for which Sean O'Brien wrote this recommendation, which now provides an eloquent euology:
"As a love poet he achieves freshness and pathos; as a fantasist he continually surprises; as a writer possessed of intellectual curiosity he strives for that marriage of direct apprehension and analysis which would be his equivalent of the philosophers stone. He is also a poet of landscape and of literature itself, of wild humour and humbling candour. We're lucky to have him."
New titles
Forthcoming Titles
 R.S Thomas: Poems to Elsi edited by Damian Walford DaviesForeword by Rowan Williams Celebrate the R. S Thomas centenary with this excellent volume that draws together 52 poems (4 previously unpublished) by Thomas to his wife, the distinguished artist Mildred E Eldridge - known as Elsi - from early meditations on their relationship to the elegies following her death. This revelatory collection dramatises the changing dynamics of a complex and vitally creative relationship. Poems on marriage, cohabitation, birthdays, anniversaries, family and bereavement offer a candid portrait of emotional intimacy, desire, the painful process of ageing, and of loss. Elsi is a complex presence here: to the 'to' in the title signifies not only 'addressed to' but also 'about', 'with an eye on', 'to be overheard by', and even in one case 'from'. ISBN: 9781781721117 Paperback 9.99 |
| God LovesYou by Kathryn Maris Kathryn Maris borrows rhythms, vocabulary and themes from the Bible in her new Seren collection of poems, God Loves You . The result is more than artful parody, although a sly wit is in evidence. It is an approach that accommodates large themes, unravelling them in new ways. The first section, What will the neighbours think?', is a kaleidoscopic view of the sins and sinners of the modern city and opens, appropriately enough, with a vision of a flood to rival Noahs. The following sections subvert scripture more directly. A mock-prayer opens: My father, who art in heaven,/ sits under an umbrella that is his firmament; a sonnet begins: Kyrie eleison! I said it in the pub. Such burlesque moments mask poignant themes of praise or blame, as well as being funny. ISBN: 9781781720356 Paperback 8.99 |
| The Scattering is a collection of 18 stories, many set on the Irish border, where this London-born author currently lives. These stories explore states of liminality: life on the Irish border, dual identities, emigration, being between states - certainty and doubt, codependency and freedom. Some explore themes of catastrophe and constraint. All explore what it means to be alive in a fraught and ever-changing world. This first collection from prizewinning author and playwright, Jaki McCarrick explores the dark side of human nature, often with a postmodern Ulster gothic twist. ISBN: 9781781720325 Paperback 8.99 |
| Shadow Dispatches by Polly Atkin Winner of the Mslexia pamphlet competition These atmospheric and keenly observational poems offer us a slant perspective on everyday things and events: the ugliness of an elderly mute swan; or a group of migraine sufferers forming a fellowship and holding regular meetings. Poems addressing the complexity of contemporary relationships sit alongside those riffing on traditional themes, even in the case of Hermes Enodios and Potnia Theron revisiting classical gods. These are poems embedded in particular landscapes, in which the real becomes surreal and vice versa. Together they form a poetry which is deeply involved with the natural world concerned with deer in fields and jays in woods but which is not in any way removed, encompassing email, photoshop, and fighter jets. ISBN: 9781781720776 Paperback 5.00 |
Meet the Author
Sunday 24th February 12-3.20pm: Let It Snow . Writing workshops with Anne-Marie Fyfe. Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadour, Earls Court, London. 28 (concs. 24) all advance booking only, with cheque, please, as workshops/classes are frequently oversubscribed. CoffeeHouse Poetry, PO Box 16210, London, W4 1ZP. Visit the Coffee-House Poetry website for further information: www.coffeehousepoetry.org/
Thursday 7th March 7.30pm-9pm: 'First Thursday' Literary evening combined with music, presenting Stuart Silver on piano and Seren poets Emily Hinshelwood, Paul Henry and Rhian Edwards . Media Point Room Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff 2.50
Seren Poets at the Stanza Poetry Festival - St Andrews, Fife Wednesday 6th March 8-9.30pm: Curated by Liam Carson , a voyage through Dublin in poetry, music and image. The Byre Theatre, Abbey Street Auditorium 8.00/6.00
Friday 8th March, 11.30am-12.30pm: 'Border Crossings' Christopher Whyte (Crsdean MacIlleBhin) , Robert Minhinnick. The Town Hall, Queens Gardens Supper Room 3.00/2.0
Saturday 9th March, 11.30am-12.30pm: 'Past &Present' Ern Moure on Csar Vallejo, Robert Minhinnick on Dylan Thomas. The Town Hall, Queens Gardens Council Chamber 3.00/2.00
Saturday 9th March, 11.30am-12.30pm: 'Border Crossings' Reading Zo Skoulding , Jean Atkin The Undercroft, St John's House, South Street 3.00/2.00
Saturday 9th March, 5-6pm: Five O'Clock Verses' Reading Deryn Rees-Jones , Alvin Pang The Byre Theatre, Abbey Street Auditorium
Seren staff out of hours
Simon bought Wainwright's Complete Pictorial Guides from an RSPCA charity shop for 5. RRP 159.99. He feels bad for cheating the animals, and because he'll never actually read the books, nor walk in the Lake District. But they do look lovely on his library shelf.
Rebecca has recently completed level one trapeze and is now learning to climb ropes She is currently working on a couple of her own short stories and some new poetry.
Mick caught up with the David Nash exhibition at Kew and was more than impressed by his response to making work in gardens rather than the landscape. It's there until mid April and well worth seeing.
Clancy has spent the last few weeks battling off a cold which is slowly getting the better of her. When she can keep her eyes open she is enjoying the Stephen Poliakoff drama 'Dancing on the Edge' on BBC 2 and finally got round to reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which she absolutely hated!
Amy somehow finds herself taking a GCSE class in Italian on Monday evenings. After four months the verdict of some Italian friends is that her vocabulary is impressive but her grammar requires at least a further four years of study. She has also learned that you must not attempt to translate 'lightbulb jokes' into Italian.
Vicky has been to see Les Miserables twice in the cinema, she loved it even more the second time around and now has the soundtrack playing in her car! She is also counting down the days until the Capital One Cup Final at Wembley on 24th February.
Penny stayed by the fire in January, with the odd chilly beach walk, but is looking forward to stage and screen in Feb - taking her daughter to Les Miserables and going to see an all-female production of Hamlet at the Welsh College of Music and Drama.
Poem of the Month
Welsh Dream TV
Much of the time there is only the silence,
So transient particles glow with significance.
You may experience rippling water
As hope scoured bright by gales,
Or suspect the hail-flak thrashing the roof
Encodes something reassuring.
When the light goes grainy and thin
There is a technical fault,
And sometimes the rays travel too fast,
So the future keeps its promise early
In a brief confetti of supercharged photons.
The heart goes on pulsing its binary message,
The beats and the space that is everything else,
Each printed letter and all the blanks,
Leaves in situ or gone to rot,
Needles of Morse piercing the spume
Blown off a north Atlantic winter.
Welsh Dream TV is transmitting
A feature on perfect felicities.
In the square of a small market town
A spring has dried up temporarily
Out of respect for one recently dead
Who possessed monumental humility.
An auctioneer and three horse dealers
Are explaining how they run things here.
The simple arithmetic of their gestures
Fits its occasions like air round stones
And their smiles are very disarming when they say
Theyre glad youve tuned in to their channel.
From The Welsh Book of the Dead by Douglas Houston
