Double Book Launch with Parthian Books
Thursday 29 October 2026
Join us at Elysium Gallery to celebrate the launch of two new collections from Swansea poets Rhys Owain Williams and Jeni Williams with readings and a q&a.
Here’s What Happens When You Enter a Black Hole
In Here’s What Happens When You Enter a Black Hole, Rhys Owain Williams explores modern masculinity, mental health, and the evolving dynamics of family. These are poems that look at the legacies that shape us – reflecting upon love, loss and lineage with a raw openness.
‘I like a poet who writes about unruly creatures: pigeons, forgotten and tormented goldfish, dogs and cormorants gathered around car parks, bins, rivers, houses, fly-tips and fairgrounds. I like a poet who writes sadness with the same feral tail-flick of a missing cat. I like a poet who gives me the sense of walking the backstreets of Swansea, growing older by the second, wondering about Welsh identity. I like a poet who writes masculinity and fatherhood as if they’ve been constructed from all the leftover bits of Swansea. I love Bucky the cat-child, the dutiful stepfather, and all the poetic steps towards becoming a father in this chaotic black hole of a world. Dw i’n hoffi’r bardd hwn. Even though I needed Duolingo to help me say that, I need no help at all to enjoy Williams’s brilliant new collection.’ – Jessica Mookherje
The Bee Travels in Dark Times
[https://www.parthianbooks.com/collections/pre-order/products/the-bee-travels-in-dark-times]
Choose a honeyed place to make a harbour…
In her second poetry collection, Jeni Williams searches for sweetness in bitter times. In an uncertain and fractured world, cities shudder to smoking ruin; the lost and confused call out across hospital corridors; and too-small shoes come apart in the rain. But, through the cracks, there are glimpses of flowers and small joys – bluebells and celandines, jasmine and honeysuckle, pomegranate syrup and cinnamon cake – a huge expanse of sky. As light emerges from darkness the characters of these poems sing out, readying themselves to begin again. Still here, and very much alive.
‘colourful, quirky, intensely imagined but above all deeply compassionate…’
– Alice Entwistle on Being the Famous Ones (Parthian, 2009)
Hosted by Susie Wild.
