A event held at Watershed on Sunday 27th April. The event starts at 14:00.
✅ Live Streamed (book a ‘Live Stream Ticket’ at checkout)
All Lyra Fest venues are wheelchair accessible. Our full 2025 Access Information Pack is available at www.lyrafest.com.
Date: Sunday 27th April 2025
Venue: Watershed (W3)
Time: 14:00 - 15:15
Tickets: FREE
Onwards! Yymlaen! Celebrating Poetry Wales @ 60
Let’s give a huge welcome to Poetry Wales - one of the UK’s longest-running poetry
journals – celebrating 60 years of publishing this Spring. And what a stellar line-up of poets we have from South Wales, all closely associated with the magazine: Costa Award winning and former editor Jonathan Edwards, Board member and Laurel
Prize longlisted Taz Rahman, Wales Book of the Year shortlisted Iraqi-heritage poet
Abeer Ameer, and disability activist Bethany Handley. Four contemporary voices
who will excite, provoke and uplift.
Presented in association with Under the Red Guitar.
Under the Red Guitar:
Under the Red Guitar is a monthly poetry night held in El Rincon Spanish Bar in Southville, Bristol, bringing together a wide range of featured poets possessing strong individual voices and open mic poets with different levels of experience. We value attentive listening, crafted poetry and clear delivery in a receptive, supportive and convivial environment.
Jonathan Edwards:
Jonathan Edwards’s first collection, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014), received the Costa Poetry Award and the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His second collection, Gen (Seren, 2018), also received the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, and in 2019 his poem about Newport Bridge was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. He received the Troubadour Poetry Prize in 2022. He has been a judge for the National Poetry Competition and the Wales Book of the Year and a Literature Wales mentor of emerging writers. He lives in Crosskeys, South Wales, and is Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Cardiff University.
Abeer Ameer:
Abeer Ameer is a poet of Iraqi heritage who lives in Cardiff, Wales. Her poems have appeared widely in journals including Acumen, The Rialto, Magma, The Poetry Review, Under the Radar and Poetry Wales. Family, faith, war, exile, and political turmoil are themes which often appear in her work.
Her debut poetry collection, Inhale/Exile (Seren 2021) was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year in 2022.
Taz Rahman:
Taz Rahman’s debut poetry collection ‘East of the Sun, West of the Moon’ published by Seren Books was longlisted for the 2024 Laurel Prize. He was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s 2024 Jerwood Poetry Prize 2024 and the 2022 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. He is widely published in anthologies and magazines and is the founder of Wales’ first Youtube poetry channel Just Another Poet.
Bethany Handley:
Bethany Handley, a writer, poet, and disability activist, was named among the UK’s most influential disabled people (Shaw Trust 2024). She won Creative Future’s Gold Prize for Non-Fiction 2023 and was shortlisted for the RSL Jerwood Poetry Prize 2024. Bethany co-edited Beyond / Tu Hwnt, the Anthology of Welsh Deaf and Disabled Writers. Her poetry pamphlet Cling Film (Seren 2025) was a Country Living top 40 cultural pick 2025.
Part of Lyra – Bristol Poetry Festival 2025
#LyraFest
Live Event ✓
Free Event ✓
Online/Streamed ✓
Entry requirements: no age restrictions
All Lyra Fest venues are wheelchair accessible. Our full 2025 Access Information Pack is available at www.lyrafest.com.
Date: Sunday 27th April 2025
Venue: Watershed (W3)
Time: 14:00 - 15:15
Tickets: FREE
Onwards! Yymlaen! Celebrating Poetry Wales @ 60
Let’s give a huge welcome to Poetry Wales - one of the UK’s longest-running poetry
journals – celebrating 60 years of publishing this Spring. And what a stellar line-up of poets we have from South Wales, all closely associated with the magazine: Costa Award winning and former editor Jonathan Edwards, Board member and Laurel
Prize longlisted Taz Rahman, Wales Book of the Year shortlisted Iraqi-heritage poet
Abeer Ameer, and disability activist Bethany Handley. Four contemporary voices
who will excite, provoke and uplift.
Presented in association with Under the Red Guitar.
Under the Red Guitar:
Under the Red Guitar is a monthly poetry night held in El Rincon Spanish Bar in Southville, Bristol, bringing together a wide range of featured poets possessing strong individual voices and open mic poets with different levels of experience. We value attentive listening, crafted poetry and clear delivery in a receptive, supportive and convivial environment.
Jonathan Edwards:
Jonathan Edwards’s first collection, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014), received the Costa Poetry Award and the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His second collection, Gen (Seren, 2018), also received the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, and in 2019 his poem about Newport Bridge was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. He received the Troubadour Poetry Prize in 2022. He has been a judge for the National Poetry Competition and the Wales Book of the Year and a Literature Wales mentor of emerging writers. He lives in Crosskeys, South Wales, and is Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Cardiff University.
Abeer Ameer:
Abeer Ameer is a poet of Iraqi heritage who lives in Cardiff, Wales. Her poems have appeared widely in journals including Acumen, The Rialto, Magma, The Poetry Review, Under the Radar and Poetry Wales. Family, faith, war, exile, and political turmoil are themes which often appear in her work.
Her debut poetry collection, Inhale/Exile (Seren 2021) was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year in 2022.
Taz Rahman:
Taz Rahman’s debut poetry collection ‘East of the Sun, West of the Moon’ published by Seren Books was longlisted for the 2024 Laurel Prize. He was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s 2024 Jerwood Poetry Prize 2024 and the 2022 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. He is widely published in anthologies and magazines and is the founder of Wales’ first Youtube poetry channel Just Another Poet.
Bethany Handley:
Bethany Handley, a writer, poet, and disability activist, was named among the UK’s most influential disabled people (Shaw Trust 2024). She won Creative Future’s Gold Prize for Non-Fiction 2023 and was shortlisted for the RSL Jerwood Poetry Prize 2024. Bethany co-edited Beyond / Tu Hwnt, the Anthology of Welsh Deaf and Disabled Writers. Her poetry pamphlet Cling Film (Seren 2025) was a Country Living top 40 cultural pick 2025.
Part of Lyra – Bristol Poetry Festival 2025
#LyraFest
Live Event ✓
Free Event ✓
Online/Streamed ✓
Entry requirements: no age restrictions
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