Category: Events

1 May

Mischief Makers: Jackie Morris in conversation with John Mitchinson

Join Jackie in conversation with her publisher and friend, John Mitchinson while she summons one of her magical creatures into life in paint on stage

Tickets on sale now here

Jackie Morris is an author and illustrator. She lives in a small house beside the sea in Wales, with cats and dogs for company. She studied illustration at Hereford College of Art and Bath Academy and has illustrated many books, and written some. The Lost Words, co-authored with Robert Macfarlane won the Kate Greenaway Medal 2019. In the same year she published The Unwinding with Unbound, and they have committed to re-issuing and re-designing her backlist beginning with Song of the Golden Hare (Sep 2020) and East of the Sun, West of the Moon (Mar 2021) and The Wild Swans (Mar 2021).

Accordion Books are an exciting new series created by Jackie Morris and published by Unbound.

An Accordion Book doesn’t open, it unfolds. One side is filled with beautiful watercolour images of an animal: sometimes in motion, sometimes at rest. The other is filled with text – poems, descriptions, invocations – inspired by the same animal.

Together they work as spell to summon the animal’s spirit. Jackie has painted them using antique watercolours, some from boxes which haven’t been opened for over 150 years, woken from their slumber with a single drop of water.

Beautifully produced at 152mm x 103mm, and printed on 440 gsm card, with foiled paper board covers foiled and a sleeve to hold the book snug, they have been designed by Alison O’Toole, who has worked with Jackie on all her recent books, including The Lost Words and The Unwinding.

Events ByPoetry Mel
23 Apr

An Evening with Christopher Meredith

Join us in The Poetry Bookshop for a long overdue evening with our friend, the award winning novelist, poet and translator, Christopher Meredith.

His first novel, Shifts, is regarded as a modern classic. He has broadcast on radio and TV and given readings and talks all round Britain as well as in the Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Slovenia and the USA.

Reading from his latest poetry collection, Still, published in April 2021 as well as from earlier work from Air Histories and The Meaning of Flight

Please join us if you can. It promises to be a great evening in the company of a monolith of Welsh literature.

Here he is holding up Brecon Library.

Y Gaer Meredith.1.jpg(credit: V.A. Meredith)

The photo above is of a wall inscription Chris composed and co-designed for y Gaer, the library, museum and gallery complex which opened in Brecon in 2019. It blends original text in Welsh and English with lines from the poetry of Henry Vaughan and Dafydd ap Gwilym.

Events ByPoetry Mel
18 Feb

Two Lights Walking through Landscapes of Loss and Life – Book Launch

Join us for books and wine as we celebrate the launch of James Roberts’ new book Two Lights – An extraordinary account of searching for the wilderness left in our world, spanning continents and geological eras, skies and oceans, animals and birds and even the planets and stars.

By Walking at dawn and dusk, through the two lights of awakening and regathering, through the stripped windswept hills of Wales, and the jungles and savannahs of Africa, he tries to find a way from a soul-stripping sense of loss towards hope in the future.

In the resilience of wild creatures he finds a way back to life.

“Deeply personal yet always outward looking, James Roberts delights in the world he discovers about him. Yet he also trembles, because he understands like winter light, that world is diminished … and diminishing … Two Lights reveals why all of us should be writers.”

Robert Minhinnick, poet and author of Diary of the Last Man

“A moving meditation on loss and fragility, tenderly tracing a love of wild creatures across landscapes of damaged yet deeply felt meaning. Startling and generous beauty, Two Lights finds light in the wondrous presence of others and the interconnectedness of all living things.”

Julian Hoffman, author of Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places
Events ByPoetry Mel
28 Oct

A Little Winter Magic – Jackie Morris & Friends

SOLD OUT

Sunday 27th November 2022, The Globe , Hay-on-Wye SOLD OUT

The Poetry Bookshop is delighted to be welcoming Jackie Morris, Nicola Davies & John Mitchinson to The Globe at Hay celebrating 5 years of The Lost Words.

Feather, Leaf, Bark and & Stone, Unbound

Jackie will be chatting with her publisher John Mitchinson about the ever evolving phenomena that is The Lost Words. Hear how it has grown and where it has led her, including her beautiful and meditative new work from Unbound ‘Feather, Leaf, Bark and Stone’ A pillow book of poems, dreams & stories typed on sheets of gold leaf and recently beautifully narrated on film by Michael Sheen here and available for pre-order with collection at the event here

Limited Edition Jackie Morris Red Fox Tote Bag

Originally from Birmingham, Jackie settled in Wales in the mid 90s and says she lives in a house ‘held together by spider’s webs’ with ‘cats that come and go’. As well as her own poetry and writing she has illustrated the work of many authors, and as a fierce advocate for Independent bookshop Jackie released her exclusive limited edition ‘Books are my Bag’ fox bags which are available to buy here or at the event if there are any left!

Choose Love, Graffeg

Jackie will also be joined by her good friend and collaborator Nicola Davies, as they read from Nicola’s new book Choose Love published this month by Graffeg. In this moving sequence of poems Nicola Davies’s text combines with the superbly evocative illustrations of Petr Horácek to provide insight into the real-life experiences of refugees forced to leave their homes and previous lives behind to face an unknown future.

I offer these poems, in love and with respect, in the hope that readers will realise that nothing but circumstance separates any of us from the experience of being a refugee. Humanity faces an uncertain future, and there is only one choice that will get us through. We need to contemplate its deepest meaning and make it anew every day: Choose Love, choose love, every time.” Nicola Davies, 2022

Profits from Ticket Sales for this event will be split equally between three local chairties – Hay2Timbuktu, Hay,Talgarth & Brecon Refugees and Brecon Foodbank

Events, Poetry News ByPoetry Mel
27 Oct

Jan Skácel “Pebbles on a Child’s Palm

A tribute in words and music to Jan Skácel – Friday 18th November, 7.30pm

This event celebrates Skácel in his centenary year with readings in translation by local writer and translator Simon Pettifar accompanied by improvisational music from cellist Sonia Hammond and pianist Rod Paton, who has lived in the Czech Republic and was for a while a neighbour of the poet in Brno.

Places are limited so please reserve your place here – There is no entry charge but a contribution to Prison Phoenix Trust is invited on the evening

Events, Poetry News ByPoetry Mel
27 Oct

Jan Skácel “Pebbles on a Child’s Palm

A tribute in words and music to Jan Skácel – Friday 18th November, 7.30pm

This event celebrates Skácel in his centenary year with readings in translation by local writer and translator Simon Pettifar accompanied by improvisational music from cellist Sonia Hammond and pianist Rod Paton, who has lived in the Czech Republic and was for a while a neighbour of the poet in Brno.

Places are limited so please reserve your place here – There is no entry charge but a contribution to Prison Phoenix Trust is invited on the evening

Events, Poetry News ByPoetry Mel