Wildlife

We're absolutely delighted for Natalie Ann Holborow , today shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award 2025 for her third poetry collection, the stellar Little Universe . Thanks to all the judges and huge congratulations to all the other wonderful writers on the shortlist! If you'd like to get involved, you can vote for your favourite book on the shortlist. ‘Poems of true wonder, mystery composed with precision. Natalie Ann Holborow is a custodian of beauty in the ordinary and the fragility of experience. The lyric moments of her Little Universe made me lift my eyes from the page and consult the stars.’ – Oliver James Lomax ' Little Universe presents an intense voyage through a recognisable Welsh landscape of family, hospital wards, homes, beaches, love, and new life. The poems encompass mythology, the joys of the everyday and the personal inevitability of illness and grief. This is a poetry acutely aware of the specificity of vocabulary and of the unconstrained p...

In her most recent collection of poetry, Christina Thatcher captures a series of vivid snapshots of life on a farm, in tune to the needs of animals and the natural world but not entirely free from the pressures of modern life. From the very first poem, she guides you step by step into the barn, down the stalls to the horses, as if to encourage you to gently place your hand on the horse’s mane. Interview: Imogen Davies Read more on Nation.Cymru

Lovely to see Rae Howells , Vanessa Owen and Arachne in The Guardian today . I picked up a copy of Afonydd at Free Verse on the 26th... I recommend you get one here: https://arachnepress.com/books/poetry/afonydd/ or from your favourite bookshop!

River Wye, Ross-on-Wye and waiting for The Pogues to start, Birmingham:

' When I first bumped to Tracey Rhys (twenty odd years ago, apparently she was just a teenager) she was reading and writing stories. They were so good I suggested she should think about a book. After about 15 years she produced a pamphlet of poems and now, 9 years on, this fabulous collection that mixes the dramatic and the hilarious to show how irresistibly brilliant she can be. Here’s hoping we don’t have to wait as long for her next book.' – Tôpher Mills