31.10.14 — Abse and Dylan
I was honoured to be able to pay my respects to Dannie Abse as part of the Wales Arts Review's special tribute issue. A great poet, and by all accounts a great man. My essay is a close reading of his early poem 'Return to Cardiff' and its strange, frustrated music.
I also have an essay on Dylan Thomas in Encounters with Dylan, recently published by the H'mm Foundation under the editorship of Jon Gower. That essay is subtitled 'Welsh Poetry's Retreat from Music in the Years after Dylan', which tells you most of what you need to know about my general thesis. Incidentally, it was through writing the Dylan essay that I initially started to think about 'Return to Cardiff'.
26.06.14 — Devolved Voices
I was interviewed and read some poems for the Devolved Voices project. It's an initiative that seeks to speak to as many Welsh poets currently writing in English as possible (Welsh poets who emerged since devolution in 1997, that is). An important project and one I was thrilled to take part in. Special thanks to Kathryn Gray, the DV research assistant, who asked the questions, filmed the material, and put up with the mess in my flat across two shoots. (See the lack of continuity in my beard, though we tried with the clothes and setting.)