14 May: #dylanday

 

I have been invited to take part in a #dylanday poetry and art project coordinated by Ana Stjelja of Association Alia Mundi ...

You can read my micropoem above and see my accompanying image below.  

I am delighted when poetry brings us together in these uncertain times. My thanks to Ana.  

  

More #dylanday here. 

And finally, with thanks to Ana:

 

 

International Dylan Thomas Day, 14 May 2023

 

Laugharne

Wishing all my friends 

a Happy International Dylan Day

2023

 

David and I enjoyed many happy visits to Laugharne and the Carmarthenshire coast from our Swansea home. You can barely make out the Writing Shed, but the Dylan Thomas Boathouse is the last white building beyond the castle on this side of the estuary, where the tidal stream bends to the left. You can see it more clearly in the photograph below.

Lidia Chriarelli* has once again curated an anniversary website to mark the occasion - here. My thanks to Lidia for including my Swansea-based contribution, a picture-poem. You will find it here, if you click the link and then scroll down. 

You might also be interested in Dear Dylan, an anthology of Dylan-inspired poetry and prose from Indigo Dreams Publishing, edited by Anna Saunders and Ronnie Goodyer. This volume (see here) was published on #DylanDay 2021 and contains one of my poems, 'Tentacles and Tar'. 

Laugharne, evening light

* There is an expansive interview with Lidia Chiarelli here in The Poet online; do take a look.

 

 

14 May 2022 ... #dylanday

 

 

Greetings to all on #dylanday 14 May 2022.

I thought I would post a rather different 'first' picture for Dylan Day this time. It was taken fifteen years ago, and shows me trying to photograph the Writing Shed that perches somewhat precariously on the cliff above the Dylan Thomas Boathouse in Laugharne. 

This is what the Writing Shed looked like from the outside in 2001:

 

... and in 2007:

Dylan Thomas aficionado, Lidia Chiarelli, a Charter Member of the international movement Immagine e Poesia, has prepared a Dylan Day presentation for 2022, featuring art and poetry from many different corners of the globe. You can find my Picture-Poem contribution, Tide Notes, in the section entitled  ...

Haiku - Haiga - Picture-Poems for Dylan Thomas 

... which you can find by (clicking the link immediately above and) scrolling down until you reach what I believe is the seventh tribute. 

* * * 

Love The Words 

eBook Anthology

I have just heard that my poem, 'Blubber, Fin and Tails', has been selected for inclusion in the 2022 #dylanday international eBook prepared by Infinity Books, after a judging process by Hannah Ellis and Mab Jones. There were about 400 entries from which about 50 have been chosen.  

* * *

My 2021 first full collection, Driftwood by Starlight (The Seventh Quarry Press, £6.99/$10 - see here), contains poems set in various places around the UK and beyond. I lived in Swansea, home town of Dylan Thomas for almost twenty years, a fact reflected in my poem, 'Rhossili: Writing The Worm' (p.38).  

National Poetry Day, 2019

The (Dylan Thomas) Boathouse, Laugharne, South Wales

Thursday 3 October 2019 is National Poetry Day here in the UK. It is the 25th anniversary, and this year's theme is TRUTH. You can find Keats' famous take on the subject here.

A few events and resources...

• the official site - here
• Suffolk Poetry Society National Poetry Day reading
  When: Thursday 3 October, 1pm – 2pm
  Where: IP15 5BS, Crag Path, Aldeburgh IP15 5BS, UK 
• The Poetry Society - here
• National Poetry Day at the BBC - here  

Blogs posts I encountered today (and I may add more)... 

• Janet Morley, guest blogger on Claire Musters' blog
• Malcolm Guite: a Villanelle for National Poetry Day
• Philip Gross on the Seren blog 

Have a poetic day... and do check out the Twitter hashtag: #NationalPoetryDay ...

Dylan Thomas - Centenary Celebrations

Dylan Thomas would have been

 100 today

 Monday 27 October 2014

Dylan Thomas outside the Dylan Thomas Theatre, Swansea

I lived in Swansea for nearly twenty years and was able to visit the heron-priested shore at Laugharne on numerous occasions. I had the privilege of meeting Dylan's daughter, Aeronwy Thomas Ellis, a few times. I attended one of her poetry workshops at the Laugharne Festival.

Dylan's 100th Birthday has been the cause of worldwide celebrations, and it seems a fitting tribute to throw links to a number of these ...

WALES

• Dylan Thomas 100
• Dylan Thomas 'the Official Website'
• Dylathon (including a reading by South Wales Evening Post reader, Ian Griffiths, Chair of the Suffolk Poetry Society)
• Peter Thabit Jones and the Dylan Thomas Celebrations (including DT100 America)
• Dylan Thomas News
• 'Poem in October' (on the BBC)

MEDIA COVERAGE

• BBC
• New York Times
• LA Times

Number 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Swansea, birthplace home of Dylan Thomas

Magazine Moment (31): The Seventh Quarry

The Seventh Quarry (against a blue background for contrast)

Issue 15 of The Seventh Quarry poetry magazine contains submissions from most corners of the British Isles in addition to contributions from Italy, Germany, Korea, USA and Guatemala. The magazine is edited by Peter Thabit Jones from Swansea. Wales is represented by eight writers in this issue.

My eye was immediately drawn to 'Gales at Rhossili' by Jean Salkilld, who runs the Swansea Tuesday Poetry group. I can visualise those Gower gales as

White horses break the misted greyness of

the sea circus ...

This issue contains a fascinating interview with Chicano poet and Boston University professor, Tino Villanueva, who came to Swansea in 2010 to read in the Dylan Thomas Birthplace. Tino, author of six books, defines the term Chicano as 'an American of Mexican descent, whether native-born or naturalized citizen.' Villanueva describes Dylan Thomas as the poet whose 'language most seduced' him. However, there are other powerful influences, too. Tino explains that he has spent the last ten years working on a poem sequence revolving around Penelope, the faithful Homeric wife of Odysseus. I sense the significance of  'ten years' as a unit of time since not only did the Trojan War drag on for a decade, but it then took Odysseus a further ten years to return to his island home of Ithaca.

Sultan Catto is the poet in profile in this edition. He is professor of Theoretical Physics at the CUNY Graduate Center and at the Rockefeller University in New York. He writes poetry in Turkish and English. I was intrigued by Sultan's poem, 'Sunday Afternoon' (the more so having just viewed a study for Seurat's Pointillist work, 'Sunday Afternoon at the island of La Grande Jatte' in the New York Met). The poem contains compelling juxtapositions of images - we find 'starfish on sands' alongside 'flights of songs'.

'The Seventh Quarry' is not only international in flavour, representing an ever-expanding global community of poets and artists, but is also refreshingly eclectic in terms of style and form. There are short pithy poems like 'Lost Song in Swansea' by John Edwin Cohen and long ones that flow across the page, such as 'Remembering Fengdu' by Nancy E. Wright. 'Visiting the Lady Chapel at Llandaff in April' by Penelope Duckworth is a modern sonnet and '45 Grave on the Nostalgia Circuit' by Simon Hunt is a rhyming sonnet.

John Brantingham holds the stage for the Grand Finale with his masterful '30 Poets, 1 Violinist, 1 Cameraman in Wales', a tribute poem to Swansea's First International Poetry Festival, which took place last summer. The poem is set in Laugharne, at the Dylan Thomas Boat House, and I am left with the lingering image of a violinist playing his music in Wales under a white umbrella in the rain.

• Details of The Seventh Quarry (subscriptions, submissions ...) can be found here.

Calendar Corner (6): National Poetry Day, UK, 2009

Footprints on Laugharne's 'heron-priested shore' *

The Boat House, Laugharne

Happy National Poetry Day!

I have been longing for the revelation of the Poetry Society's surprise knitted poem. The knitting was carried out 1000 heroic members of the Poetry Society as part of the centenary celebrations. It seems to me that this poem is not only a suitable poem for writers everywhere, but it is also a fitting tribute to the poet, Aeronwy, daughter of Dylan Thomas, who died earlier this year. The unveiling took place outside the British Library yesterday, and the poem was presented to the Royal Festival Hall today.

Did you take part in the BBC poll of favourite poets? You can read the results here, and I feel there are one or two surprises. You can discover the favourite poet of a number of celebrities here.

• National Poetry Day in Wales
• The Times has an intriguing article on the future of poetry ... from 1913.
• National Poetry Day with Crafty Green Poet and at Polyolbion.
  

I hope you have all been celebrating in style.

* Do let me know if you can identify the footprints in the sand. You might also like to identify the feathers on Crafty Green Poet's blog here and on Weaver's blog here.

Poetic People (23): Aeronwy Thomas, book review

It was good to find a review of My Father's Places by Aeronwy Thomas (Cassandra Jardine in the Telegraph, 29 Aug 09). The book is published by Constable and costs £14.99.

Jardine concludes that Dylan's daughter, who died recently, wrote 'with a lyricism reminiscent of her father's'. Do look out for the book.

Poetic People (22a): The Guardian on Aeronwy Thomas - a tribute

The Guardian Obituary for Aeronwy Thomas-Ellis has now appeared, and you can read it here.

Poetic People (22): The Times on Aeronwy Thomas - a tribute

The Boat House, Laugharne
Photo: David Gill

Aeronwy Thomas: translator, writer and daughter of Dylan Thomas | Times Online Obituary

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Poetic People (19): Aeronwy Thomas-Ellis

The Boathouse, Laugharne
Photo: David Gill

I have just heard the sad news of the death of Dylan's daughter, Aeronwy Thomas-Ellis. She was an inspiring poet and tutor in her own right, and a marvellous advocate for her father's work. I was privileged to attend one of Aeronwy's poetry workshops in Laugharne a year ago: it is a memory that will stay with me for a long time. My thoughts and condolences go out to the family.

Tributes

• by Peter Thabit Jones on Contemporary Literary Horizon (Romania)
  

• This is South Wales
• Wales Online
  
• Aeronwy's interview about her father, BBC (2003)
  

Poetic Places (2): Dylan's Laugharne

Photo: Copyright David Gill

I stumbled across this article about an ice cream magnate and the Dylan Thomas Boathouse at Laugharne.