Wês- wês

posted in: art, Poetry, Wales
Wes whant dod i lantwd - Benfro Welsh dialect for Do you want to come to Llantwd.  A sign at the entrance to Eisteddfod 2026

As beautiful to read as it is to hear this not-so-quiet dialect of a sunny corner of Benfro. Eisteddfod 2026 at Llantwd was full of it. Familiar yet somehow foreign to a gog as it might be to a non-Cymro. Yma o hyd as we might say.

The sign is written in a poetic form of the distinct local Pembrokeshire dialect (specifically from the north of the county, an area traditionally referred to as the home of the “Wes Wes” people due to how they say the word oes / “yes”).
The text is a welcoming rhyming couplet written by the famous Welsh poet Ceri Wyn Jones to celebrate the Eisteddfod being hosted in the hamlet of Llantwd. More or less translates*:

“Do you want to come to Llantwd,
To celebrate every festival?
Yes indeed, friend!”

Glei is a wonderfully hyper-local Pembrokeshire idiom that acts as strong affirmative confirmation (“indeed” or “certainly”).
Gwd is a local affectionate slang term for a friend, comparable to “lad,” or “mate,”

Interestingly, on the A487 somewhere near Cardigan was a handwritten sign which read “Wês Whant Peint?” with an arrow pointing to a pub up a lane. That and the sign above made my day.

*certainty of translation = 94%

Stay Tuned

The heat death of the universe
leads directly from this page.
Around 8 o’clock on a Tuesday
75 trillion years from now
entropy will be complete
Thermodynamic equilibrium.
Nothing interesting will ever happen again.
The last photon will give up its glow.
We must be ready.
Meanwhile keep an eye on this point
And await further instructions.

Stay Tuned.
The heat death of the universe
leads directly from this page.
Around 8 o’clock on a Tuesday
75 trillion years from now
entropy will be complete
Thermodynamic equilibrium.
Nothing interesting will ever happen again.
The last photon will give up its glow.
We must be ready.
Meanwhile keep an eye on this point *
And await further instructions.

Breathing

posted in: art, Books, Poetry

Just about to publish this book. I love the work of David Van Cauter. This is the second collection of his that we’ve published. This could move you to places you didn’t know you could go.

From the cover blurb by poet Emma Simon: In ‘Breathing’ we hear a voice trying to make sense of the world around him, whether it’s dealing with a declining difficult parent, wandering around follies of the past or today’s Brexit-battered high streets. And a sense of the end of the world haunts many of these poems: creeping closer to the flat-earther at his computer screen, or dealing with the emotional debris and physical detritus that accumulates from those who’ve left.
These are accessible poems that speak clearly to the reader, but deepen on each re-reading. The third part in particular, a sequence that is delicately and perfectly structured, is one of the most moving things I have read for a long time. I felt my own breath catch reading it, and needed the voice of the poet reminding both himself and the reader to focus on the ever-moving horizon, to keep breathing.

P.S. The cover is a piece of digital artwork also by me that I call “Anadlu” naturally.

The cover of the poetry collection "Breathing" by David Van Cauter.

Another holiday, another castle

posted in: Countryside, Poetry, Travel

Not staying if it’s not a castle! Kinnity Castle, Co. Offaly. Foloowed by a sleet-dodging blast up the Slieve Blooms to Wolftrap mountain. From the antenna sprouted latter there came forth a poem. A film poem actually. Currently in its gestation period.

Other pics: street scene in Birr, Co. Offaly, a vintage petrol pump in the street there and the Laois/Offaly border

Sigmund Freud’s gaff

posted in: art, Books, Poetry, Travel

Two poems about dementia safely delivered (one by Gareth Writer-Davies and one by me) to a book launch at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, Maida Vale last night. Here I am next to a photo of that great man Sigmund Freud. I used to love him on Radio 4’s Just a Minute and his ads for dog food with his mutt Henry were just hilarious.

The book was called Clinical Psychoanalytic Case Studies with Complex Patients: Watching Experience at Work in case you wondered. Great friend Rachael Davenhill has a chapter in it.

Wysg

posted in: art, Books, Poetry

PUBLISHING AGAIN VERY SOON… Navigating the borderlands of Wales, seeking to bridge the new and the familiar; the streaming of our lives, our conflicts with nature, getting older and always, where we have been and where we are going? This, at once playful, confident and whimsical new collection by Gareth Writer-Davies will be available this spring.

Cover of Wysg by Gareth Writer-Davies is a 17th century map of Monmouthshire centred on town of Usk.

Book launch night.

posted in: art, Bollocks, Books, Poetry

Here I am, compering a 3 book launch night at the Poetry Cafe, Covent Garden. My part in the books’ creation was as typeset, production and publishing – everything but the words. This rather excellent evening concluded with fine pale ale in a proper old “nuclear sub”.

River Lane

posted in: Books, Poetry

Proud to be the publisher behind this particularly special first collection from Simon Cockle.
…”imaginative curiousity, willingness to engage…poems that offer genuine insights“, “…a writer who has found his stride“.
Available right now from our website: http://www.arenig.co.uk/product/river-lane/

1 2 3 4