& The Midnight Heart Blog
I have been thinking and writing about the Welsh legend of Branwen recently, in this micro-chapbook out with the Poetry Annals, Blind Horse Elegy (cover image by Victoria Brookland), and in the title poem itself which was a runner up in the Hopper Poetry Prize. When I think of the story of Branwen, I think of [...]
On the summer solstice two years ago, there was a big, beautiful supermoon. It was 2016 – pre-election, pre-Trump. That night, I woke up for no obvious reason, and downstairs I noticed a strange light coming through the glass doors. The moon was up, honey colored, clouds passing in long fingers across its face. I [...]
[This talk was given on March 3rd 2018 at a talk for a Heforshe event at the Ohio State University.] I want to start by quoting a short poem by the British author Jane Commane. The poem is called ‘Landmarks’ and it describes the threat of violence in our everyday spaces, asks how or why [...]
The Stanford swimmer rape case is hugely infuriating, because it reveals the rape myths that still police men and women, and have an enormous influence on how crimes are perceived. This comes as no surprise to me, as someone who devotes much of their time to debunking these myths, but let’s lay it out, and see [...]
When I heard that David Bowie had died, the first thing I did was pull up YouTube. I focused on hearing the songs again, and let the chaos of the morning at our house – plastic spoons, bibs and Tonka trucks – unfurl around me. When I first listened to 'Life On Mars,' I just [...]
The new issue of the New Welsh Review features a project titled "Beyond the Barren Lands" which combines my poems with photographs by Nathan Roach. An English friend of mine asked me a question about the Valleys recently. He had just completed the annual Dragon Ride, a cycle route that ranges around the Ogmore, Rhondda, [...]
