April Seren News.
Seren – Publishers of Letter to Patience by John Haynes, Winner of the 2006 Costa Poetry Award
News
Special Offer
Poetry Wales
Events
New Titles
Poem of the Month
News
David Llewellyn, author of Eleven will be writing a blog on The Telegraph website, check out http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/guests/davidllewellyn or www.telegraph.co.uk or his thrice weekly blog. Subjects so far tackled by the accomplished Llewellyn include various aspects of a recent visit to London to research his forthcoming novel, the lack of John Lennons, the mind-altering qualities of vapour trails and, the burning issue in Wales: the Welsh Curry House of the Year finals.
Throughout the month of April, Seren will be advertising the publication and exhibition of The Valleys by Anthony Stokes on bus backs across the Valleys area. Keep your eyes peeled! A series of 16 postcards of some of Stokes' photographs have also been produced: contact us here at the office for details about cards and book. The exhibition is running at the Cynon Valley Museum &Gallery, Aberdare until the 12th May. Contact www.cvmg.co.uk for details of the exhibition.
Grahame Davies has been awarded an Academi bursary to produce Wales and the Muslims, a follow-up volume to his 2002 Seren book, The Chosen People: Wales and the Jews. His translation of his novel Everything Must Change will be launched on Friday 11th May, 7pm at The Gate, Cardiff.
Special Offer
Seren is offering a double discount for poetry lovers! Costa Poetry Award winner Letter to Patience, by John Haynes, is sharing double billing with Seren Selections, edited by Amy Wack, for the excellent total price of £12 for the two books, a saving of £5 on the joint cover price.
John Haynes is now in high demand for talks and readings, following his achievement in lifting the Costa crown in competition against world-class poets. His book-length poem was the "unanimous choice, a unique long poem of outstanding quality" from the Costa judges. Excellent reviews and a new high media profile combined to give John Haynes a terrific boost in his career. For editor Amy Wack, Seren Selections identifies some of the freshest voices, with an emphasis on Wales, but also from further afield. This diverse sampler is a showcase for the work of promising talents such as Zoë Brigley, Abi Curtis, Karen Goodwin, and Michael Williams. Seren Selections is the start of a series of compact anthologies from Seren featuring new poetry.
Visit www.seren-books.com to make the most of this excellent offer.
Poetry Wales
Launch of the Spring 07 Poetry Wales
LAUNCH READING
POETRY WALES, SPRING 07
Coopers' Arms, Northgate Street, Aberystwyth
8 pm Friday, APRIL 27 '07
With guest readers & Open-Mic
& Editor, Robert Minhinnick
RSVP maureenbarrett@seren-books.com
LANSIAD & DARLLENIADAU
POETRY WALES, GWANWYN 07
Y Cwps, Heol Northgate, Aberystwyth
8pm Dydd Gwener, EBRILL 27 07
Gwesteion & Meic Agored
Gyda'r Golygydd, Robert Minhinnick
RSVP maureenbarrett@seren-books.com
Spring 07 Poetry Wales
With a striking cover of a street corner in Berlin, and a wealth of information and poetry inside, PW offers essays on the tricky question of Poetry, Printing and the Internet (Kathryn Gray), an in-depth interview with Alan Llwyd of Barddas press and poetry magazine, looking at the broader picture of Welsh language poetry, and the pressures that are mounting up. Zoe Skoulding examines issues of language and territory, and Tim Liardet, in Chewing the Cwd: Tales from the Creative Writing Departments, tells what it was really like trying to teach poetry to young offenders. Hair-curling stuff. Robert Minhinnick takes a difficult trip to a Holocaust site and finds he is part of a strange tourism industry.
There are new poems and translations. D. Nurkse translates Ernst Jandl,there are contributions from Steve Griffiths, Matthew Francis and Peter Finch, and rising young poet Meirion Jordan and newcomer Katherine Stansfield. Pascale Petit, Kearan Williams, christopher brooke and Richard Marggraf Turley are also included.
The Reviews include four volumes of Welsh poetry considered by Menna Elfyn, and John Hartley Williams explores Tim Liardet's The Blood Choir, among others. Lots of reviews this quarter, with input from Landeg White, Ian Davidson, Jeni Williams, Jackie Wills, and Lyndon Davies. There is also the One Thousand Column, by Zoe Brigley, and Peter Finch looks at William Wantling's work. So, enough to keep everyone busy for three months.
Anyone wishing to subscribe to Poetry Wales can write to Poetry Wales at 57Nolton Street, Bridgend, CF31 3AE, or email for information, or subscribe via the Seren website at www.seren-books.com
Digitisation
Poetry Wales has been invited by the National Library of Wales to take part in a major digitisation project, which will result in all our back copies becoming fully searchable on the world wide web within the next two years. Details are still being finalised, but this exciting and ambitious scheme will transform research and accessibility to the Poetry Wales archive. More meetings are being held, and further details will be passed on as they become available. We'll let you know when it goes live.
TLS Poetry Competition
The TLS Poetry Competition 2007, sponsored by Foyles. The Times Literary Supplement has launched a poetry competition sponsored by Foyles. There are four cash prizes to be won, with a top prize of £2000. All entries must be received by midday, Friday 4th May. Click here www.tls.timesonline.co.uk to find out more about the competition and to download an entry form.
Events
Friday 30th March - 17th April - a selection of images by Patricia Aithie, author of The Burning Ashes of Time, will be on show at The Martin Tinney Gallery, Cardiff as part of Small IV, The Small Paintings Show. The exhibition includes work by well-established artists, including Josef Herman, Harry Holland, Shani Rhys James, Kevin Sinnott, Mary Lloyd Jones, Gwilym Prichard, John Knapp-Fisher, Claudia Williams, as well as up-and-coming names like Mike Briscoe, James Donovan, Clive Hicks-Jenkins, Sigrid Muller, Dewi Tudur, Iwan Gwyn Parry, Darren Hughes and Vivienne Williams. The gallery is open 10 - 6pm Monday to Friday, and from 10- 5pm on Saturday.
Thursday 5th April, 7.30-9.30pm - Paul Henry, author of The Slipped Leash will be reading at The Poetry Café, Courtyard Arts Centre, Hereford. Please visit www.courtyard.org.uk/ for further information. Paul will also be running a workshop for Teifi Writers on Saturday 14th April. Contact Seren for more information on general@seren-books.com
Friday April 6th, 8pm - Christine Evans, author of Growth Rings (longlisted for the 2007 Wales Book of the Year Award) will be reading at the Ucheldre Centre in Holyhead. Email enquiries@ucheldre.org for further information.
Saturday 7th April, 7pm - Seren will be launching Occupation Prizefighter: The Freddie Welsh Story by Andrew Gallimore at Yates Wine Lodge, WestgateStreet, Cardiff. The launch ties in with the Joe Calzaghe/Peter Manfredo fight which takes place in the Millennium Stadium on the same day, author Andrew Gallimore will be showing archive fight footage of Freddie Welsh. All welcome, please contact Jen Campbell on jencampbell@seren-books.com
Tuesday 10th April - Fiona Sampson, author of The Distance Between Us and editor of Poetry Review, will be reading at a 'What Poetry' session at Haverfordwest Library. Please contact Christine.willison@pembrokeshire.gov.uk for further information.
Tuesday 17th April, 1-2pm - Tim Liardet, author of The Blood Choir will be reading at Nottingham Trent University. Please contact cor.web@ntu.ac.uk for further information.
Tuesday 17th April, 7.30pm - Tim Liardet will be reading for Ambit Magazine, with Carole Satyamurti at The Bountiful Cow, 51 Eagle Street, Holborn. Please phone 020 7404 0200 for further information.
Thursday 26th April, 7pm - Ann Drysdale, author of Real Newport will be reading at the launch of her new book 'Three-three, two-two, five-six' (Cinnamon Press) at the Glanfa, Welsh Millennium Centre, Cardiff. Please contact Cinnamon Press on jan@cinnamonpress.com or visit www.cinnamonpress.com
Friday 27th April, 4.30pm - Peter Finch, 'Real' series editor, and author of Food, Christine Evans, author of Growth Rings, longlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award, and Christopher Meredith, author of The Meaning of Flight will be reading at the Roland Mathias Prize ceremony. Free admission, The Guildhall, Brecon.
Friday 27th April, 6.30-8.30pm - Pascale Petit, author of The Huntress will be running a ten-week course 'Towards a Collection' at The Poetry School. This practical ten-week course offers advice and guidance for poets working towards their first collection. It will be held on Fridays weekly 6.30 - 8.30pm, 27 April - 29 June 07 The Poetry Studio, The Poetry Society, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2H 9BU Fee: £88, £76 conc. http://www.poetryschool.com
Poet Portraits exhibition by Lorraine Bewsey will be at the Mount Street Gallery, Brecon until 12 May. For details visit http://www.breconart.co.uk/msg_current.html
New Titles
To buy any of our titles, please visit our secure site on www.seren-books.com
Now published:
In Praise of Navigation
A collection of twentieth-century Dutch short stories translated by PC Evans and Paul Vincent.
From the West Indies to Shanghai, this collection of modern short stories opens up a new world of Dutch writing to English readers. Subjects range from poetry to paranoia, power and desire as the authors take us on a search around the globe, or concentrate on a claustrophobic homeland. In Praise of Navigation is intended as a companion volume to In A Different Light - a collection of contemporary Dutch-language poets in translation, published by Seren in 2002. It provides an overarching view of twentieth century Dutch writing in a field where many outstanding writers are poorly represented in translation and deserve a wider audience.
Respected translators Paul Vincent and PC Evans bring us the works of authors such as Harry Mulisch, Hugo Claus, WF Hermans and Gerard Reve. And there is an introduction by Welsh-born, Amsterdam-based poet PC Evans. This is an intense, powerful collection that sets the internal world of individuals against wider backgrounds such as post-cold war Europe, or colonial, seafaring traditions.
978-185411-416-7, £9.99
Pumping Up Napoleon by Maria Donovan
An assured first collection of fifteen short stories, with an offbeat take on human relationships and the relationship of the rather unreliable human body to mind and spirit. 'Offbeat' includes growing your own four-foot son for organ transplants, dog massage and a university lecturer's tender relationship with a resurrected Napoleon Bonaparte. Fay Weldon writes that "These stories are remarkable, and engrossing: sometimes funny, sometimes sinister, always accomplished. Some will be classics".
Author Maria Donovan, a creative writing lecturer at the University of Glamorgan, takes us on a bizarre, funny and often touching tour of death and laughter, love and space travel, with a deceptively direct prose style. Her light, humorous touch allows a darker strand to surface repeatedly - dislocated, lonely lives, out of sync with their surroundings - set alongside the oddity and tenderness of human relationships. These understated, well-crafted stories constantly surprise and engage, producing a fine, enjoyable and thought-provoking collection.
ISBN 1-85411-441-7/ 978-185411-4419, £6.99
Wales's Best One Hundred Churches by TJ Hughes
The churches of Wales are one of Britain's great unheralded treasures, yet for many years there has been no book devoted to them and they await the kind of complete coverage given to churches elsewhere in Britain. Astonishingly, this is the first opportunity for a book on the subject to show them at their best in colour photographs as well as words. The archetypal Welsh church is not in town or village, enhanced by generations of patronage: it is the isolated, simple, evocative walls-with-roof, in a landscape often spiritually charged. The Welsh churches tell us about medieval times, and the Age of Saints that came before and, amazingly of the pagan Celtic times before that, which they were meant to erase.
Illustrated in colour Wales's Best One Hundred Churches encompasses a millennium of churches around Wales, from tiny St Govan's tucked in its cliff-face, through ruined Llanthony to the magnificence of the cathedrals at Llandaff and St David's. It is an invaluable repository of history, art and architecture, spirituality and people's lives which will appeal to the historian and the tourist, communicants and those without a god.
£20 HB, 1-85411-426-3 / 978-185411-4266
£9.99 PB, 1-85411-427-1 / 978-185411-4273
Occupation: Prizefighter, The Freddie Welsh Story by Andrew Gallimore
Historically one of the all-time great boxers Freddie Welsh, of Pontypridd via New York, helped transform boxing at the turn of the twentieth century from blue collar bloodbaths to middle class social event, and big business. Freddie boxed when the rules were hard, sometimes taking a fight a week in defence of his title. He mixed with the cream of American society, relaxed with thinkers and writers and defeated all comers. But his story is also that of so many boxers, success and money followed by bad investments and ill health and he died, virtually alone, in Hell's Kitchen shortly after his forty-first birthday. Andrew Gallimore's gripping narrative spans the twilight years of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, Europe's slow descent into war and the dawn of the Jazz Age in the United States. You may have seen the article in The Times recently based on the book's contention that Welsh was the basis for F. Scott Fitzgerald's character Jay Gatsby, while boxing websites are buzzing with praise for the sporting aspect of the book.
£14.99 HB 1-85411-395-X / 978-185411-3955
See events section for launch party details on Saturday 7th April.
The Valleys by Anthony Stokes
Introduction by Iain Sinclair
The Valleys is a beautifully-produced collection of more than a hundred colour photographs selected from several thousand images made during the last five years by Anthony Stokes. Stokes' pictures reveal a unique and richly-coloured vernacular where the histories of The Valleys' townscapes and landscapes are overlaid with decades of modifications. This 168-page hardback book, with an introduction by Iain Sinclair is published to coincide with the exhibition at the Cynon Valley Museum which runs until 12th May. A series of 16 postcards have also been produced to accompany the book and exhibition, please contact us here at the office for details.
£25 HB 978-1-85411-444-0
Poem of the Month
A Nightmare
Crabbe
Fresh water trapped in the couplet's granite,
Held under pressure. Grimes in his boat
Maundering among reeds, water flat and filmy
With oil of decay. The good preacher
Bends to his quill; whole villages must be
Penned in, ironed and starched in rhyme.
We must breathe – strait-laced is strangle-held.
Polished boots of iamb stride across the page,
Characters cry out, elbowing, angry,
Fall to the scythe of rhyme and moulder
In suitable graves. Tombstones lean
Confidential and foolish. Gat-toothed the living,
Arm-wrestled by the preacher into verse.
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Seren – Publishers of Letter to Patience by John Haynes
Winner of the 2006 Costa Poetry Award