Gig Alert: The Poetry Cafe, London

You are cordially invited to join Parthian Books at the Poetry Cafe for the launch of Kate Noakes' latest poetry collection.

The Filthy Quiet has attracted early notices as follows:

"Kate Noakes’ new collection is a trove of rich materials – rare minerals, sharp sense-impressions and resonant myths. It makes you want to touch… and when you do, it burns. There’s a fire beneath that surface, all the fiercer for keeping just out of sight, licking up through the cracks." - Philip Gross 

Kate Noakes’ The Filthy Quiet is a collection aloud with every imaginable sensation - poems that teem with soundscape, texture and detail, are lithe and lusty, full of movement; timed and poised precisely, sprung like clockwork mechanisms, knowing the exact weight and measure necessary in the poem’s discrete making. Noakes’ poetry brings forward an electrifying premise - “its charged promises / its dance of light” - full of sparks and campfires, wakeful nights and miracles, and bold women who know the “art of repair”, always brightly striking onwards, generating its own irresistible energy. – Jane Commane

Both Kate and Susie Wild, her editor at Parthian will be reading. they will be joined by fellow Parthian poet, Mark Blayney. Books will be for sale.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/kate-noakes-the-filthy-quiet-book-launch-tickets-55159358125?aff=ebdshpsearchautocomplete

Seren Cornerstone Poetry Festival

I'm looking forward to hosting this event with some excellent new and emerging poets in Cardiff a week Saturday. Come along and find your new favourite poetic voices...

Sat 9 Feb 10.30am

Stage: MEZZANINE


Parthian Editor and poet Susie Wild introduces six authors, all poets who live and work in Wales.

Our showcase aims to give you a sampler of these varied voices, all who have made an impact with their new collections: Mab Jones, Ailbhe Darcy, Rhys Owain Williams, Christina Thatcher, Nia Davies, and Mari Ellis Dunning, will each read for ten minutes from recently published books.

Tickets for this event are also available on the door (£7.50)

https://www.facebook.com/events/282609819124366/

Longlisted in the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition 2018

I'm pleased to hear that I was longlisted in the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition 2018, selected by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy... and in pretty good company too! Thanks.

Lots more poetry news and events for the Parthian brood here...

Susie x

Two Publishing Talks: Southampton and Swansea

I'm talking writing, poetry and publishing on class act panels in two far flung UK locations this autumn!

This month, come see me on Thursday 20 September in Southampton:

Then, next month, I'll be on the panel of the More Poetry is Needed session at Swansea Fringe Festival (2-4pm, Sunday 7 October:

Submitting your poems to a publisher can be intimidating, but The Swansea Fringe is here to help! Three of Wales’ leading poetry editors – Emily Blewitt (New Welsh Review), Nia Davies (Poetry Wales) and Susie Wild (Parthian Books) – join The Crunch’s Adam Sillman for a panel discussion focused on the world of publishing and poetry. 

What do these three editors look for when they open up submissions? Are there any pitfalls to avoid when sending your work for consideration? And has being an editor changed their approach to submitting their own poetry to magazines and publishers? All of these questions and more will be answered during a lively panel discussion and audience Q&A, revealing exactly what happens when editors decide that more poetry is needed.

Facebook Event Page

Fame is a Place on Scott Tyrell's Spoken Word Map of the UK & Ireland.

Find out more via Scott Tyrell's twitter

Brecon Beacons, Green Man Festival, Ep.1

Oh Literary Death Match at Green Man was such fun, thanks to the 1000+ audience for coming and watching at Babbling Tongues on Saturday afternoon, and to Adrian, Laura and Fiona for inviting me along, it was so, so very close...

Here's the LDM post about it all:

August 18, 2018 — In our first foray into an event at a National Park, Literary Death Match headed to the Green Man Festival in Brecon Beacons, Wales for an afternoon delight that saw Rebecca Tantony narrowly outduel Susie Wild in sudden death during a One Star Wonder finale, winning Tantony the LDM Green Man, Ep. 1 crown and literary immortality to go with it. 

Here's the lineup from the event: 

JUDGES: 
Literary Merit: Anita Sethi, award-winning writer, journalist and broadcaster
Performance: Johnny Lynch, a.k.a. Pictish Trail, a Scottish musician for the ages
Intangibles: Horatio Clare, critically-acclaimed author and journalist, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and author of Icebreaker: A Voyage Far North

READERS:
Round 1:
* Ross Sutherland, writer, performer and award-winning podcaster, who works across theatre, film and radio
* Susie Wild, author of Better Houses, journalist, critic, lecturer, festival organiser and editor based in Cardiff

Round 2:
* Rebecca Tantony, spoken word artist, journalist and author of Talk You Round Til Dusk
* Hari Ramakrishnan, Bristol-based actor, writer and director 

Hosted by LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga (check out his debut novel Collision Theory today!)

Planet Review: Better Houses

Oh I've just read a lovely joint review of Brood by my dear friend Rhian Edwards and Better Houses by me me me in the new issue of Planet. Thanks Elizabeth Edwards. Some snippets for you...

On Better Houses:

"The collection begins on a riotous note in 'Build the Table First', invoking fire, broken glass, flamingos and fake blood, in worlds made, destroyed and remade through outnumbered 'house moves'. But (as the fake blood may suggest) nothing comes to serious harm here, ultimately looking towards physical and emotional forms of steadiness: 'nothing is broken between us / for long'. It's a fitting introduction to the collection as a whole, which contemplates big life shifts throughout but is ultimately a gentle and conciliatory work. [...] 'Carcharodon Carcharias, Cariad', reels gorgeously from a restaurant to the seashore to the night sky [...] Finding (the way) home is of course a key theme for this collection full of thresholds. [...] The collection ends with an anxious doorstep pause – 'You wait for your self / to open up, to let you in with your secrets' ('Inside You') – that suggests an unfinished journey through the experiences and signs that tell us we're home." 

On Brood:

"From The Parliament of Fowls to Crow, birds are familiar ground for poetry but Edwards's dark and witty Brood finds new points of entry. Suggesting maternity, and a mood, from the title onwards, Brood bears witness to things unravelling – a relationship, a pregnancy, a myth, a familiar rhyme. [...] transporting us the undefined chaos of an unreal world crowded with characters (human and avian) and voices (spoken and sung), and their increasingly punishing demands."

I'm just a few sales away from a reprint, make it so ;) and also please buy and support Planet or log in to your account to read more x