I’ve arrived a few hours early, as is my
habit to take the early road across half the country, so I am offered my choice
of rooms. This week I fancy Lloyd George’s bedroom. I’m not afraid of ghosts
and the fact that he died here bothers me not a jot. It’s a huge room and I
have it to myself. It affords me a view of the front garden with its herbaceous
borders, pebbled path and imposing wrought iron gates beyond which is the
wooded drive.
I unpack, wander down to the kitchen to
make myself tea, and mug in hand I refresh my memory of the layout of the
house, standing and staring at various spots; the library with its weird
acoustic, the dining room, and garden, which in the still damp I take a
proprietorial tour around to the end gate and its uplifting view over the
fields to the sea in one direction, and to Snowdonia in the other. I turn back
to look at the white painted rear elevation of the house, picking out the
stages of building from the various shiny slate roofs and glass extension. My
tea is a drinking temperature now. A true refreshment. I retrieve my notebook
and pen, then settled in the back porch wrapped in a throw, I start writing.
I have been attending courses at Ty Newydd
for nearly fifteen years. In that time I have had the pleasure of being taught,
encouraged, supported and promoted by major poets, Welsh and otherwise –
Gillian Clarke, Carol Ann Duffy, Jo Shapcott, Daljit Nagra, and Robert Minhinnick
to name just a few. It was only after my very first course there with Gillian and
Carol Ann that I had the confidence to apply to do an MPhil in Creative Writing
at the University of South Wales. As part of that degree we also attended Ty
Newydd for a weeklong workshop where I was taught by Sheenagh Pugh, Tony
Curtis, Philip Gross, Des Barry, and others. After graduation, I attended the
workshop as a fringe member, using the opportunity as a writing retreat.
I have been a long-standing supporter of Ty
Newydd. It is my home in Wales. I am 55 now and very far from retirement. My
writing is nothing like a hobby. If poetry could give me a living, I would
certainly be doing it full time. In the last decade, since Carol Ann wrote
“Brilliant!” on one of my poems at Ty Newydd, I have:
·
published over two hundred
poems in various magazines,
·
had six collections of poetry
published (the next one is out in 2018), one of which was reviewed in the PBS
magazine, and all of which have had good reviews,
·
been widely anthologised,
·
read at countless festivals and
poetry evenings in the UK and France,
·
won poetry prizes,
·
founded a literary association
in Paris that runs workshops, open mic nights and publishes a magazine, Paris
Lit Up, for which I edited the poetry,
·
taught writing workshops for
Oxford University and the Poetry School,
·
been elected to the Welsh
Academy of Letters, and
·
had my website archived by the
National Library of Wales.
Would I have had the chutzpah to do all of
this without the confidence in my work and path given to me at Ty Newydd? Most
probably and resoundingly not.
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