Elysium and The Swansea Fringe are delighted to present an afternoon of poetry from a selection of Swansea – and Wales’s – finest poets.
Featuring:
The Talisman Poetry Group
The group is made up of poets who contribute to the Talisman Poetry Night, held on the last Wednesday of the month at Elysium, and compered by Becky Lowe.
Becky Lowe
Rebecca Lowe is a journalist, poet and Quaker peace activist, based in Wales, UK. She is a Bread and Roses Spoken Word 2020 Award winner, has appeared on BBC radio, and her poetry has featured in many anthologies including Red Poets, Blackheath Countercultural Review, and the Ymlaen/Onward! anthology of radical Welsh poetry (Culture Matters, 2019). She is also the driving force behind the aforementioned Talisman Poetry Night.
Peter Thabit-Jones
Peter Thabit Jones is the author of fourteen books, including the Dylan Thomas Walking Tour of Greenwich Village New York with Aeronwy Thomas. His work has been translated into over twenty languages. His numerous awards include an Eric Gregory Award, a Royal Literary Fund Award, an Arts Council of Wales Award, the 2016 Ted Slade Award for Service to Poetry, the Shabdaguchha Poetry Award 2017 and the 2017 Homer: European Medal for Art and Poetry.
He is the author of libretti and plays, and also writes for children. His work ‘Under The Raging Moon (one night with Dylan Thomas in Greenwich Village, New York)’ is also being performed at the National Waterfront Museum on Thusday October 5th as part of Swansea Fringe.
Tim Kelly
Tim Kelly is an artist and poet working in Swansea from the Elysium Gallery Studios in Orchard St – his practice includes drawing and mark making with paint and pigments. Tim studied at Swansea Collage of Art or his Masters in Fine Art, and graduated in 2014.
In his art Tim is interested in making simple marks to build up layers and layers as a physical metaphor for complexity and process. His work has been an enquiry and exploration of contemporary cultural, political and scientific thought through mark making using simple marks on paper ground.
Tim’s poetry is direct, even acerbic at times, and pulls no punches when it comes to challenging those in power.
Susie Wild
Susie Wild is author of the poetry collection Better Houses, the short story collection The Art of Contraception listed for the Edge Hill Prize, and the novella Arrivals. Her work has recently featured in Carol Ann Duffy’s pandemic project Write Where We Are Now, The Atlanta Review, Ink, Sweat & Tears and Poetry Wales. She placed second in the Welshpool Poetry Festival Competition 2020, was highly commended in the Prole Laureate Prize 2020, was shortlisted for an Ink Sweat & Tears Pick of the Month 2020 and longlisted in the Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition 2018. Born in London, she lives in Cardiff.
Wild (also Wildsmith) is Parthian’s publishing editor specialising in poetry and fiction. With Parthian since 2007, she’s worked with award-winning writers including Mari Elis Dunning, Lloyd Markham and Rebecca F. John. Following an MA in creative writing from Swansea University and an MA in Journalism from Goldsmiths, Wild has also built a portfolio career in the arts as a journalist, festival and events organiser, performer, editor and university lecturer.
David Hughes
David Hughes centres his poetry in the heart of Swansea, its people and language. With his poetry collections and monologues he explores character, memory and Welsh identity.
Since the former social worker turned to poetry, he has released two poetry collections, Tidy Boy (1998) and Working Out (2021), as well as creating a series of historical monologues as part of ‘Catch the Echoes’ which can be heard at Margam Park and along parts of the River Tawe.
David was also responsible for the ‘Ambition Is Critical’ sign embedded into the pavement outside Swansea train station, a mere 100m from Elysium, after Swansea Council commissioned him to produce a poem celebrating the magic of Swansea.