Wildlife

 you beautiful lot Xx

  Thrilled to see Julia Bell's Hymnal on WAR's ' Best Poetry Collections of 2023 ' list! Late in the 1960s, before Bell was born, her father and mother visited Aberaeron, a small fishing town on the west coast of Wales. Here, her father heard a voice – which he knew to be God – directing him to minister to the Welsh. Six months after she was born in the early 1970s, they moved to Aberaeron where he took up his first curateship. Over the next eighteen years they would move to various parishes within a forty mile radius: first to Llangeler a predominantly Welsh-speaking parish in the Teifi valley, then back to Aberaeron where Bell’s father became vicar, and then to a larger and more Evangelical church in Aberystwyth. This unique memoir in verse offers a series of snapshots about religion and sexuality. In verse because it’s how Bell remembers: snapshots in words strung along a line, which somehow constitute a life. Snapshots of another time from now, but from a time whic...

It was lovely to see Hymnal , Julia Bell's memoir in verse selected as a 2023 Highlight by the Welsh Books Council in their latest newsletter . 'Moving, tender writing with a haunting evocation of place and time.' – Hannah Lowe 'Bell pulls us deep into her memory, where depth charges lie planted which are then detonated to great effect. We are there, in her moment, and though her eye is unwavering and her wit biting, it is never at the cost of empathy... The claustrophobia is gothic and palpable, but never overplayed – testament to Julia Bell’s finesse as a writer, but also her frankly awesome powers of forgiveness.' – Mike Parker,  Planet Magazine ' Hymnal is vivid, intense and freeing. There is so much to release; so much deep emotional confusion is explored. Her poems remind me of Sharon Olds’ The Father and Pascale Petit’s The Zoo Father, woven through with threads of trauma and self-discovery ... This work bursts forth in relentless, rich images. It’s a re...

It is lovely to see Letters from Wales: Memories and Encounters in Literature and Life by Sam Adams on Wales Arts Review ’s Best Welsh Non-Fiction Books of 2023 list! ‘This is writing in time and over time; the author’s horizons widen as he goes, his impressions change... What is revealed is the generous deep-rootedness of the author’s cultures.’ –  Michael Schmidt ‘His writing respects writers, respects the past and, because of this quality, it continuously offers readers something surprising and new.’ –  Jonathan Edwards 'with  Letters from Wales  Sam Adams has created what has become one of my favourite books dealing with the histories and cultures of our homeland. Nominally concerned with a country’s literatures, packed with praise and puzzlement, Adams’s ‘Letters' is a vastly wide-ranging collection of personal engagements. Those who know Sam Adams's own poetry will be delighted by the self-revelations that create a delicious seam throughout this wo...

COMING IN APRIL 2024... FOX BITES The new novel from Betty Trask winner Lloyd Markham Surely we can all come back from the edge? Can we? Set in Zimbabwe during the early 2000s, amidst a backdrop of political turmoil, FOX BITES is a dark coming-of-age horror fantasy about pain, loneliness, and stepping back from the abyss. Available to pre-order: https://www.parthianbooks.com/collections/pre-order/products/fox-bites Lloyd Markham was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He spent his childhood in Zimbabwe before moving to and settling in south Wales at the age of thirteen. His first novel 'Bad Ideas\Chemicals' was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year and won a Betty Trask award. He was awarded a bursary from Literature Wales to develop his second novel 'Fox Bites'. He lives in Cardiff where he likes making and listening to strange music.

Watch Exposé: The Cardiff Poetry Scene (from 60s to the 90s) – a fascinating conversation between Seren Poet Bob Walton and Parthian poet Tôpher Mills about the poetry scene in the Welsh capital from the 1960s to the 90s (Just Another Poet).

' Wild Cherry is a collection that does justice to a man respected, loved, and revered for his poetry, teaching, and friendship. With McGuinness’s introduction, editing and notes, the selection here serves to direct readers to Jenkins’s wider work. It is a collection destined to become a bookcase staple within the world of Welsh poetry.'  – Liam Nolan ( A review from www.gwales.co m, with the permission of the Books Council of Wales .)

  Yesterday’s crazy sky turned the lounge pink…

  Day eight of The Poetry Society's  #BooksOfTheYear   Jane Aldous recommends Ness Owen's Moon Jellyfish Can Barely Swim (Parthian Books).

I’m delighted to be working with Rae Howells again for her new collection of poems This Common Uncommon , out with Parthan in May 2024, and available to pre-order now .  I’ve been thinking about my former MA tutor Nigel Jenkins’ ‘Advice to a Young Poet’ ( Wild Cherry: Selected Poems ) again this week… ‘poems, au contraire – and not least in Cymru – / have made many things happen.’  We hope so! Let’s see…

Hello December! We’re really pleased that Wild Cherry , the Selected Poems by Nigel Jenkins, edited with an introduction by Patrick McGuinness, is a Welsh Book of the Month! Available now from Parthian Books and your favourite bookshops!