Robert Lloyd - a Sir Gar Blog of random news . . . and some Clecs!

Menna Elfyn will be launching her new bilingual Welsh-English collection Murmur with a number of events this autumn. As well as several launches in Wales, she will also be giving two readings in London. The book is published by Bloodaxe on 27 September. Murmur includes a sequence of poems about the last princess of Wales, Catrin Glyndwr, daughter of Owain Glyndwr, who was incarcerated with her children in the Tower of London for over two years until their mysterious death. Fittingly enough, mur-mur in Welsh also means wall-wall, so the book’s leitmotif is one that stresses the distance between words and worlds. Murmur is a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation.  “Her voice is gentle, even tender, but she is far from confining herself to the valleys and mines of her grandparents’ landscape… her points of reference lie far outside the Welsh tradition – to Emily Dickinson and Kurt Vonnegut… and her own travels extend to Cairo and Bucharest.”   - PB...

Students at Trinity University College in Carmarthen are gearing up to run their very own ‘Fringe’ during June’s Trinity Arts Festival. It’s the fourth time for students to stage a week-long programme of events they proudly label as their own Ffrinj. “As a series of events, it’s all neatly packaged up into five days from the 7th of June,” said Kevin Matherick, Head of the Faculty of Arts and Social Studies. “It may not attract the big headlines that the main arts festival attracts, but it is just as important to the students who work very hard to stage the Ffrinj. “The purpose of the Ffrinj is to give creative and performing students the chance to share in a wide range of exciting events, providing them with a fitting climax to their academic year. “The Ffrinj is a very important part of college life and I am sure it will continue to go from strength to strength and be an important addition to the Trinity Arts Festival. “My job is easy – chairing the organising committee. It’s the stud...