2024 began with the completion of the PhD, and then in May I was invited to read at the Aberystwyth Poetry Festival, where I enjoyed three days of sunshine and poetry performance. It meant a lot to me to be able to return to the place where it all began, reflecting on all that has happened since I began studying creative writing there in 2003. Nineteen-year-old me could never have imagined I would one day return, to read my poems in front of an audience at the town’s public library!

Publications this year have included three poems with audio recordings on iamb, and seven prose poems in The Mackinaw, all of which can be read online. And, after many years of bombarding The Interpreters House editors with my submissions, they accepted ‘A humble cloak placed on the back of a donkey and made out of fragments of cloth’, which you can also read online (scroll down and you’ll see my reflection on the writing process, too).

I spent the summer experimenting with words and collage, after being commissioned by SHAPE Arts to create a short poetry film, which explores some of the outcomes from my PhD research. I’ll be launching the film ‘Fragments of Us’, very soon, so watch this space for more information!

A photo taken on the day we filmed ‘Fragments of Us’ – a poetry film commissioned by SHAPE Arts, coming soon

I planned and taught a new ten-week Lifelong Learning course, ‘Art and Ekphrasis: Creative Writing and the Modern Museum’, and a series of creative writing workshops at Cynon Vallery Museum, and have continued to enjoy teaching creative writing for undergraduates at Cardiff University. I also presented my PhD research at a couple of conferences, and my mind is still buzzing with ideas from the discussions we had around poetry, art, exhibitions and engagement.

The year ended with a feature in Poetry Wales on the concept of ‘Poetry as Network’, reflecting on the way in which museum visitors responded to my interactive poetry display at National Museum Cardiff, and (after two long years of writing, editing, and peer-review) the publication of my third academic journal article, ‘Negotiating Empathy in the Art Museum: Ekphrastic Inquiry as a Historiographic Tool’.

But the most important literary highlight has to have been the time I’ve spent curled up on the sofa, reading stories with my niece and my one-year-old nephew (who is already an insatiable reader). Favourite books include those I remember from my own childhood: ‘Noisy Nora’ by Rosemary Wells, ‘Each Peach Pear Plum’ by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, and ‘Dusty Wants to Help’ by Inger and Lasse Sandberg.

I haven’t been able to spend much time writing book reviews, but I did enjoy completing the Sealey Challenge in August (reading one new poetry collection each day) and I’ve also managed to delve into plenty of historical fiction, including several time-slip novels by Barbara Erskine, which I heartily recommend. Two other particularly good reads of 2024 were The Distance Between Us by Maggie O’Farrell, and Many Rivers to Cross by Dylan Moore.

Some of the poetry books I read for this year’s Sealey Challenge

Looking forward, I am particularly excited to be teaching an MA poetry module at Swansea University this coming term, on a campus overlooking Swansea Bay and the beautiful Gower peninsula.

I’m also excited to be travelling up to Manchester to do a reading at the Manchester Poetry Library on 30^th January, for the first Manchester Met Alumni Showcase. I’ll be reading alongside 5 other poets, and the event will also be streamed online. More details here…

You can see more details of the past year, with photos, on my Instagram account.