Hay 25

So Hay comes around again. This year, the festival celebrates an incredible 25 years. I’ll be there this June, in conversation with poet Philip Gross (8 June), comedienne Helen Lederer (9 June) and travel writer John Harrison (10 June). I do hope you can join us. You can take a look at the programme here.

Devolved Voices – a new project

I am delighted to announce that Professor Peter Barry, distinguished academic based at Aberystwyth University, has been awarded a major research grant from the prestigious Leverhulme Trust. Professor Barry has been awarded the grant to lead the three-year ‘Devolved Voices’ project. The project begins in September of this year, and I am thrilled to be joining Professor Barry on the team, alongside the wonderfully acute critic and scholar Dr Matthew Jarvis.

Devolved Voices will focus on the English-language poetic output from Wales since 1997 – a period that has seen many exciting new voices emerge and, notably, a flowering of powerful and various poetry from women. The project will result in several books, including a scholarly volume and a book of interviews with poets.

During the life of the project, there will be an exciting and media-rich living narrative of the project on our Devolved Voices website. The website will feature interviews with and readings from poets, together with interviews from notable players on the Welsh poetry scene. The website will be open to all, and we intend that both specialists and readers of poetry in general will find stimulating material. We’ll also be on Twitter! All of this will go live later this year.

It’s a great honour to receive a Leverhulme research project grant, and we are all enormously grateful to the Trust for its support.

You can read more about the project by taking a look at the press release.