Recent Reviews of Mamiaith and No Spider Harmed

Eat the Storms review of Ness Owen’s Mamiaith

A long, thoughtful and very enthusisatic review from Damien B Donnelly

The collection cleverly deceives the reader with its light appearance; delicate forms of short poems with few words but that too is its strength, like a language not used enough so that words are forgotten and we must cut to the truth without the fluff and frills.

Following on from Dawn Dumont’s quote at the beginning of the poem One Name, Cymru- to be born indigenous is to be born an activist- we realise that the fight is happening here, within the considered calls rising up from these carefully chosen lines, each word perfectly formed into a sense of identity often bashed, often silenced but ever resilient.

buy Mamiaith here

Review of No Spider Harmed on Blue Nib

an appreciative review from Chloe Jacques

Pieces in the collection rarely seek to impose an anthropomorphized interior experience onto their spiders, and the anthology is filled with musings and suggestions that speak both to things shared between humans and spiders, and to the ultimate mystery of a spider’s inner-world.

The myriad voices in the collection – and the many ways they have interpreted the call for submissions – make for a stimulating read, at once serious and moving, as well as light-hearted and frivolous.

This collection is a refreshing, detailed and compassionate take on an under-loved and fascinating creature.

buy No Spider Harmed here

Arachneversary – Mamiaith Ness Owen

Almost exactly a year ago we published Mamiaith, by Ness Owen our first bilingual poetry book, in English and Welsh.

To celebrate our Arachneversary and Mamiaith’s Bookversary, Cherry Potts and Ness discuss the origins of the book and the misread email that almost derailed it before it got started!

Poetry goes Eeeeee

ALL our poetry books are now available as eBooks!

With the booktrade suffering, we wanted to make it as easy for you to get lovely things to read as possible, so we have worked very hard to get these in the vitual shops for you. Thanks to Inpress for organising conversions and uploading!

Find these gorgeous words as Kindles on Amazon

and ePub on Hive

In case you were wondering, all our fiction is already available as ebooks. We aren’t set up to sell them ourselves, yet. Working on it.

Anthologies The Other Side of Sleep, and Vindication: poems from six women poets

With Paper for Feet Jennifer A McGowan

A Gift of Rivers, and The Don’t Touch Garden, Kate Foley

Foraging , Joy Howard

Erratics, Cathy Bryant

In Retail, Jeremy Dixon

The Knotsman, Math Jones

Mamiaith, Ness Owen

Let out the Djinn, Jane Aldous

The Significance of a Dress, Emma Lee.

 

Mamiaith Launch videos – Part 1

First of the videos from the launch of Mamiaith at Canolfan Ucheldre in Holyhead.

On the night the Eisteddfod packed up early because the weather was so bad, the hardy folk of Ynys Môn shrugged on their coats, and very possibly sou’westers and wellies, and came out to celebrate Ness Owen’s lovely book.

I don’t normally include my wittering on in the videos, but there were some important things to report in this introduction, so it’s included.

 

And here’s author Ness Owen reading her title poem, Mamiaith.

 

 

Mamiaith gets a mention and Jeremy travels

Actually a bit more than just a mention, on Poetry Book Society blog on Translation.

head over and see!

In other Wales related news, Jeremy Dixon is heading over the bridge a couple of times this month…

Queer Words with Queer Poets

  • LIGHTHOUSE – Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop (map)

spoken word with AR Crow, Jeremy Dixon + Freddie Alexander

 

and then

Thursday 15 August, 6.30-7.30pm
Arnolfini Bookshop, Bristol
reading from IN RETAIL, plus some new poems! FREE EVENT!

Happy Saint David’s Day /Dydd Gŵyl Dewi

It’s St David’s Day, so let’s celebrate our Welsh/Wales-based writers

Jeremy Dixon (In Retail, Liberty Tales, The Other Side of Sleep)

Nicholas McGaughey (Dusk, An Outbreak of Peace, Noon, Story Cities)

Karen Ankers (Noon)

Gareth Culshaw (Noon)

Diana Powell (Noon)

Ness Owen (Mamiaith, An Outbreak of Peace, Noon, Dusk, Shortest Day Longest Night)

We are publishing Ness Owen’s first collection of poems, Mamiaith on 8th August.

The Title means Mother Tongue and the collection is partially bilingual, because when the manuscript arrived, and there were several poems about the Welsh language, my first question was, why aren’t these in Welsh?

Ness is of an age that she was not taught in Welsh in school but in English, so that Welsh was effectively taught as a foreign language. Although she is a native speaker, she is unconfident of the fine detail fo writing in Welsh. After some discussion we agreed that if she could find someone to help, at least some of the poems should be in both languages.

That help was supplied by Sian Northey in the main, but also Iona Evans.

Mamiaith
Pwy wnaeth ddwyn y geiriau
o geg fy mam a’u taflu yn
ôl ataf mewn darnau sy’n
disgyn i’w lle yn fy mhen ond
yn gwrthod disgyn ar bapur?
Fel perthynas annisgwyl, yn dal
ag ogla capal, yn twt-twtio yn
fy nghlust, ysgwyd ei phen
a thrio fy neud yn ddiarth i fy
eitifeddiaeth.
Wyrion y ‘Not’ pryd nawn ni
dorri’r cortyn? Sut nawn ni
ddweud ein stori yn yr iaith fain?
Yn baglu ac ymddiheuro
dan ni’n anadlu Mamiaith
yn barod am chwyldro
ond yn gwybod y bydd ein
hysgrifen yn ein bradychu.

 

Mamiaith
Stolen from my mother’s
mouth, thrown back to me
in pieces that fit so neatly
inside my head but will
not fall onto the page.
Like an uninvited relation
still smelling of chapel
she tuts in my ear, shakes
her head, tries to make
me a stranger to what’s
already mine.
Grandchildren of the Not
When will we break the chord?
How do we tell our story in
a thin language? Tongue-tied
excusing our way through
we breath in Mamiaith
waiting to be unearthed
always knowing our
pen will betray us.