5 Poets in Poetry Wales

Posted by Colin Holcombe on 2 08 15 in Poetry | 0 comments

It’s difficult to be enthusiastic about Poetry Wales, which publishes unsentimental reflections on things not made poetry by craft, treatment or inherent subject matter. The outlet makes the usual claims: Founded in 1965, Poetry Wales is a quarterly magazine with an international reputation for excellent poems, features and reviews from Wales and beyond. Emerging from a rich bilingual culture, Poetry Wales explores the diverse perspectives of Welsh poetry in English and its international relationships. Only three issues are available online at the London Poetry Library (the latest being 1993), the two recent specimen poems (by Damian Walford Davies and Emily Toder) are pious pretense, and the website archives give reviews only of poetry collections — conscientious no doubt, but not making us rush off an order for the works in question. Let me try to say what I mean...