A lady called Tammy Allen recently joined the Hay Writers' Circle, and she's just had a book of poetry published.
The book is called Roots, and it's published by The Conrad Press. Tammy is a Mental Health Counsellor from the Swansea Valley, and the poems deal with her experiences of loss, grief, healing and acceptance in the face of adversity. Each poem is illustrated by Sion Rees.
Submissions for the 2026 Hay Writers' Circle poetry competition are now open.
Poems should be original, unpublished, a maximum of 40 lines in length, and on any theme.
The judge this year is Lesley Saunders, a prize winning author of several poetry collections, and translator of modern Portuguese poetry.
For full details, visit the website at www.haywriters.com
Closing date is 7th April.
I was back in St Mary's for the talk George Nash was giving on Neolithic Tombs of Wales - I treated myself to the book. Some of the talk was about Wales, but the rest covered his whole career, including caves in South Africa and tombs in Sweden. If anything, the church was even fuller than for Metropolis, (and there was cake on offer) and he was a very entertaining speaker. He was especially pleased by the way Logaston Press had laid out his text and photos. "Never mind the text - just look at the layout! And the cover - that's sexy!" (It's a photo of a dolmen, which he took, but it's a very fine dolmen with a great view). His next book is on rock art in Wales, so maybe he'll be back as a speaker when it comes out.
I caught some of the poetry at the Poetry Bookshop as I wandered round town - the poets were performing on the Pavement outside the bookshop, and gathering small but appreciative crowds.
The rest of the centre of Hay was taken up with the Food Fair - and crafts. There was a stall selling miniature books, as badges or as part of bookmarks and so on. Later I saw a chap wearing one of them on his lapel. He and his girlfriend were getting ready to get married, and they were giving copies of the book - Pride and Prejudice - as wedding favours, which they had sourced from charity shops and second hand bookshops at random.
I found some very nice honey - Bydafau Woodland Honey from Carmarthenshire - and a bottle of sparkling white wine called Shouting At Weather, from the Black Mountain Vineyard who were at the Secret Garden in the summer.
While I was at work today I got chatting to a lovely couple from Antwerp, who said that they had very much enjoyed the talk at St Mary's called The Dead of Winter: The Demons, Witches and Ghosts of Christmas. This featured an accordion player and the Blackthorn Ritualistic Folk morris dancers!
Hay Winter Festival is coming up soon, (next weekend, in fact) and there are lots of things going on around town that are not in the official programme.
Wobbly Owl is the new cider shop opposite the Blue Boar. They are paired with an Owl Sanctuary in Ebbw Vale - they even sell cuddly owls to raise funds. On 29th November, they will have some owls from the sanctuary in the shop.
Down at the Poetry Bookshop on 30th November, there will be a day of poetry. From 10am to 3pm, on the hour, they will have two poets performing their poetry - a different two poets each time. They are partnered with Parthian Books for the event, which is free. There are actually thirteen poets - there will be three performing at 1pm.
Also on 30th November, and also partnered with Parthian Books, North Books will be hosting an event at 4pm. The event is called Birds of the Imagination, and features three writers talking about how birds and the natural world thread through our lives and our imagination and into our words and writing. Tickets are £5 from the bookshop - please book in advance.
Also at North Books, in the evening, there's live music. Julie Brominicks will be reading extracts from her travelogue The Edge of Cymru, published by Seren Books, with music from Rowan Bartram's EP Outta Borders. The email I have doesn't mention ticket prices, but the doors open at 7.30pm for the performance to start at 8pm. Drinks will be available.
The shop was packed, but there was just space for a keyboard and the viola player, and Simon the Poet.
Sadly, Omar Majeed couldn't make it, but Simon had put together a very good programme of nature poetry even though he admitted that he hadn't given much thought to climate change or climate activism up until now. Rod and Steven provided musical interludes.
The first poem was from Cressida Gethin, the girl from Dorstone who is now in prison for helping to arrange a Zoom call to organise the blocking of the M25 motorway as a protest.
This was followed by a poem about hiking in the Rockies by Gary Snyder and a Czech poem called Prayer for Water. Simon has been translating Czech poems into English, and Rod at the piano actually lived in Czechoslovakia from 1968 for a time. Rod said that everyone in Czechoslovakia knows this poem, and it has great meaning for them. When Simon had recited the English version, he repeated the last verse in Czech, and followed that up with part of his own Moravian Suite - Moravia was the part of Czechoslovakia that Jan Scakel the poet came from, and where he lived just down the road.
Then we got part of Wordsworth's poem about Tintern and the Wye Valley, and a poem by Gerald Manley Hopkins.
Simon read one of his own poems, about living with sheep just above Hay, and followed it up with Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver.
All of these poets are worth seeking out, by the way. Their work is wonderful.
We finished with a Welsh lullaby, sung by Ros, who was sitting in the audience - so it was a trilingual evening, with English, Czech and Welsh. Rod said that, when he brings musicians together to play jazz, the group is called Blue Haddock, and Ros lives in Tenby and is a mermaid - so the title for the evening was Blue Haddock and the Tenby Mermaid.
It was a wonderful evening, and a lot of money was raised for the Prison Phoenix Trust, which is a charity that organises yoga and meditation sessions in prisons.
On Tuesday 12th November, at 7pm, there will be an evening of poetry and music at North Books.
Music will be provided by Steven Broom on viola and Rod Paton on piano (not sure where they're going to fit a piano in! Maybe it'll be a keyboard).
Simon Pettifar and Omar Majeed will provide the poetry.
The evening is to raise funds for the Prison Phoenix Trust, which teaches yoga and meditation in prisons, and is in support of Cressida Gethin, from Dorstone, who was one of the Just Stop Oil climate activists who was sentenced to four years in prison recently for causing serious disruption on the M25.
The event is free, though donations to the charity are welcome, and drinks are available.
I've just discovered (thanks to Malk Williams on Facebook) that Kandace Siobhan Walker has her debut book of poetry out. It's called Cowboy, and it's available from the Poetry Bookshop.
Kandace has previously written short stories - she won the 4th Estate Guardian Short Story Prize in 2019, and she's a film maker. She also won the White Review Poet's Prize in 2021. She's also included in the book Welsh (Plural): Essays on the Future of Wales, where she talks about her experiences of growing up as a black girl in rural Wales. Although she now lives in South London, her mum still lives near Hay - her mum being Marva Jackson Lord, who runs Griot Arts Ltd., a web design and digital media consultancy.
It's time for the Hay Writers' Circle Poetry Competition again. It's open to all, and this year the poems should be on the theme of food.
Poems should be original and unpublished, and a maximum of 40 lines. Winning poems may be published on the Hay Writers' Circle website. First prize is £100, with cash prizes for second and third place.
The judge this year is Susan Evans, an award winning artist and writer. She writes poetry for stage and on the page, on themes including food and travel, and she can be found online at www.facebook.com/SusanEvansPoet
The closing date for the competition is 9th April, and full details of how to take part can be found at https://thehaywriters.wordpress.com
The lights were switched on very successfully last night - the square was packed full of people, there were two traction engines with trailers (and Santa) and a fire engine, and the edges of the square were lined with food stalls and stalls with local beers and ciders. In the Buttermarket, the school was raising money with tombolas, and there was a bucket collection for the Christmas Lights. There were choirs on the Castle steps, and George the Town Cryer was up there too.
I don't watch TV, but I understand that this year's celebrity, Hamza, was on Strictly Come Dancing. He seemed happy to be doing the honours.
Several shops around town opened late, too, from Oil and Oak at the end of Castle Street (which was blocked to traffic for the evening) to the Childrens Literature Laboratory by the Buttermarket, so I had plenty of opportunity to do a bit of Christmas shopping, too.
And today, the Fairtrade Fayre is in the Buttermarket, with usual stalls Love Zimbabwe and Tools for Self Reliance, Zaytoun selling Palestinian olive oil and nuts and other foods, jewellery from Timbuktu, cakes from Hay, Brecon and Talgarth Sanctuary for Refugees, and more.
Tomorrow, Hay2Timbuktu are running fund raising events at the Globe. Tickets are available from the Poetry Bookshop.
There's Welcome to Wild Town! a poetry show for kids with AF Harrold; The Star Whale, and interactive poetry and painting adventure with Nicola Davies and Petr Horacek (I'm sorry - I can't do the accents on his name); and Jackie Morris and Cathy Fisher will be in conversation with Nicola Davies about the making of the picture book The Panda's Child.
Tonight looks interesting - there's a talk from 7pm to 10pm about the curlew. Or rather, a series of talks, from a variety of speakers. Mary Colwell is from Curlew Action, and is also an author. James Roberts is a local author who has written beautifully about curlews in his book Two Lights. Rachel Taylor is from BTO Cymru. Sian Shakespear is from Curlew Life. Lizzy Daly is a wildlife presenter and Nicky Davies is the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Ecologist.
This week also marks the beginning of Curlew Connections Wales, a project to drive curlew recovery across Wales, where the species is in a state of serious decline.
Also today is a print workshop at 1pm, making pictures of curlews, and a writing workshop from 4pm to 6pm by James Roberts, who is a very good nature writer, so that should be worth attending for anyone interested in writing about nature.
(This is all a bit short notice, I'm afraid, because I've been busy with Other Things, but more details are available on the Hay Castle Trust website).
Also at the Castle, coming up soon, is an African Dance session on Saturday 4th November with Tijesumini Olakojo - there are two afternoon sessions, costing £5, and no experience is necessary.
Then on Friday 10th November, at 6pm, the Cameroonian writer and human rights activist Eric Ngalle Charles will be performing his poetry. Price is £7.50.
The art exhibition at the moment, which runs until 12th November, is Refugee Artists Wales, with work collected from across Wales by a variety of artists including Josef Herman. A second exhibition shows work from people who are currently seeking sanctuary in Wales.
Griots Poetry are hosting the Farrago Poetry UK Slam 2024 UK Qualifier at the Globe on Sunday 21st May at 7pm.
The founder of the Farrago Poetry Slam, John Paul O'Neill, will be leading a Masterclass from 3pm to 5pm that afternoon.
There are two special guest local poets.
Cat Wyllie-Fox is the owner of the Sandwich Cellar on Backfold, and her first book of poems came out recently.
Kandace Siobhan Walker has Jamaican-Canadian, Saltwater Geechee and Welsh heritage, and writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction as well as creating installations and moving image works. She's won several prizes for her work. Kandace grew up in Llanigon, and Marva Jackson Lord of Griots Poetry is her mum!
Anyone wanting to compete in the Poetry Slam should register by email in advance, by next Saturday at the latest. Entry is free, and the email is hello@griotspoetry.org Places are limited!
It looks as if the beginning of March is going to be very busy! What a lot of creative people there are in Hay!
There's the St David's Day concert at the Globe on Wednesday 1st to start things off.
Then there's the Climate Cafe, also at the Globe, on Thursday 2nd at 7.30pm.
And on Friday Rosie Hayles will be at Hay Library at 3pm, for their Enchanted Hour, to talk about her book Finding Hay: A Journey up Broad Street. It's a really good book, full of interesting stories about the history of Broad Street and the buildings there.
Then there's poetry on Friday evening, at the Poetry Bookshop, for the launch of a new book by James Roberts - Two Lights: Walking Through Landscapes of Loss and Life, at 7.30pm.
The Poetry Bookshop is hosting a Book Launch on Friday 3rd March, from 7.30pm to 8.30pm.
The book is Two Lights, by James Roberts, and he will be reading extracts and talking about some of the themes, including wolves, lions, curlews and wilderness.
There will be wine, and the event is free.
Griots Arts is putting on an event!
On Sunday, 13th November, at 7pm, Clifton Joseph will be performing at the Globe, with a Q + A session afterwards. The cost is £10. Clifton Joseph is an Antiguan Canadian dub poet, and he's been doing readings in London and Southampton. He's also doing a poetry workshop at 3pm, cost also £10.
There's a possibility of the evening performance starting with an open mic session - anyone interested should contact Griots Arts for more information.
Meanwhile, the Poetry Bookshop is also putting on an event, on Friday 18th November at 7.30pm. This is called Pebbles on a Child's Palm. This is a tribute to Czech poet Jan Skacel in his centenary year.* The poems, in translation, will be performed by local poet Simon Pettifar, with music from cellist Sonia Hammond and pianist Rod Paton, who was a neighbour of Jan Skacel in Brno for a time.
This is a free event, but donations to the Prison Phoenix Trust are encouraged.
*there should be an accent over the 'a' of Skacel.
It looks like 22nd October will be busy with good things.
Yesterday, I popped into the Tourist Information Bureau to buy a ticket for Harpland, a concert at St Mary's Church. It starts at 7pm and features harpist Ruth Wall and composer Graham Fitkin - the tickets are £12.50 each, and £6.25 for the under 25s. The music is based on old Gaelic tunes found in bagpipe and fiddle books, and will be played on Ruth Walls three harps, the Renaissance bray harp, Scottish Clarsach and Scottish lever harp. I adore harp music, and the clarsach in particular, so I'm really looking forward to this. Graham Fitkin will also be talking about the stories of migration related to the music, especially the Highland Clearances.
And in the afternoon of the same day, at 3pm, the Poetry Bookshop is hosting an afternoon with Brian Bilston, who is on tour promoting his new book Days Like These, with a poem for every day of the year. I've seen some of Brian Bilston's poems come up on Twitter (or possibly Facebook), and enjoyed the humour of them. Here's a taste from The Cost of Loving:
I love you more than life itself
but I swear I'll love you better
if you let me turn the heating off
and you wear another sweater.....
I won't be able to go, though, because it seems that tickets have already sold out, at £5 each or £20 with a copy of the book. The Poetry Bookshop has partnered with the Globe for the event, and it seems they will need the extra space!
There were a lot of entries this time - around fifty, and the judge complimented the high standards.
The winner was Michelle Pearce, of the Hay Writers Group, and the runner up was also from Hay Writers - Jean O'Donoghue. In third place was Jaz Slade from Devon, and two other writers were highly commended.
It's time for the Hay Writers' Circle poetry competition again.
The competition is open to all, with a first prize of £100, and smaller cash prizes for second and third places.
The poems must be original and unpublished, a maximum of 40 lines, and on any subject.
Closing date is 15th March.
The judge this year is Dr Jack McGowan, the Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Head of Department of English, Media and Culture at the University of Worcester.
For full details visit https://thehaywriters.wordpress.com
A friend noticed this poem, close to the statue of the heron on the Riverside Path:
Normally, they'd put out flyers, but that's not really an option at the moment.
Hay Writers Circle are holding a poetry competition, and they've got Mel Prince from the Poetry Bookshop as their judge. This isn't the first time she's been a judge - in 2015 she was one of the judges for the Costa Book Award.
The closing date is 16th March. It's an open theme, so any subject, to a maximum of 40 lines. The details are on the Hay Writers' Circle website - the link is in the side bar. The entry fee is £5 for one poem, but up to four poems can be submitted for a fee of £10.
The first prize is £100, second prize £25 and third prize £15, with winning poems published on the Writers Circle website with the author's permission.
