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The Old Bridge and Pontypridd Museum.

Bob Walton

clare e. potter

Rhian Elisabeth

Rob Cullen

Rhys Milsom

Cara Gwen

Mike Jenkins

Nicholas McGaughey

Fans we like!

Not sure about poetry  or spoken word? Remember the old saying!

“If you always do what you always done.

You’ll always get what you always got.”

Be adventurous come along to a relaxed and enjoyable night. You never know….

“Cardiff born and Cardiff bred”, Bob Walton has lived in Bristol for many years, but the Severn Bridge and the view from Avonmouth to South Wales still nourish his hiraeth. He describes himself as a poet of celebration who looks for light on the dark side of the moon. With a PhD in Creative Writing, he’s an experienced workshop tutor and teaches Creative Writing at Cardiff University. In Bristol he’s a member of The Spoke poetry workshop and performance collective.  His first collection, Workings, won the Welsh Arts Council New Poet Award back in 1978 but there was a 39 year gap before Seren published his second collection, Sax Burglar Blues, last autumn. He loves cats, music, theatre, and the visual arts. He’s an ardent laptop fan of Cardiff City and has been the ruin of several music teachers who tried to help him get better at playing the saxophone.

Clare e potter was Landmark Trust’s poet-in-residence at Llwyn Celyn medieval house and recently Moravian Academy Pennsylvania. October’s Artist in Residence for the Wales Arts Review. clare has translated poems for National Poet of Wales, Ifor ap Glyn. Collaborates in community projects. Received Arts Council funding to collaborate with a jazz quintet to create a response to Hurricane Katrina. Second poetry collection on the way thanks to a Literature Wales bursary.

Rhys Milsom is a Writer at Work at Hay Festival, a winner in the TSS International Writers Award and the author of two poetry collections, Amnesia, and Transition, both published by Accent Press. He has been published in magazines and anthologies, and is working on a novel. Rhys has been published in magazines and anthologies worldwide

Cara is a bilingual musician and writer from South Wales. Her music and poetry explore themes of landscape, folklore and politics.

Nick McGaughey is an actor living in Pontypridd. He has work forthcoming in “Dusk” The Anthology, Poetry Salzburg Review, Blood Puddles, Envoi, Sarasvati and A New Ulster. He will be doing his one man show at Llandeilo Lit in April.

Rhian Elizabeth was born in 1988 in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales, and now lives in Cardiff. Her novel, Six Pounds Eight Ounces (Seren, 2014), was shortlisted for The International Rubery Book Award. She has previously been a winner of The Terry Hetherington Young Writers Award and her poetry was shortlisted for The Bangor Poetry Prize (Northern Ireland). Her debut poetry collection will be published by Parthian in Spring 2018. She is a Hay Festival Writer at Work

Rob Cullen studied at Bristol and Cardiff art colleges and lived in New York and Brighton. Rob was an expert to the criminal and family courts. He retired in 2012. His short story The Choice was published in an anthology in 2015. Rob has written short stories published in Ystrad Stories related to the paintings of Ernie Zobole.  His poems have been published in the online magazine I AM NOT A SILENT POET, and The Learned  Pig. His poems have also been published in the RED POETS anthology. A collection of poetry “Uncertain Times” was published in 2016. He is currently working with a publisher on a novel. www.celfypridd.wordpress.com

Mike Jenkins Retired Comp teacher, lives in Merthyr. Conducts creative writing workshops for children and adults. Co-editor of Red Poets magazine for 22 years. Winner of Wales Book of the Year for short story collection ‘Wanting to Belong'(Seren). Book of poetry ‘Nobody’s Subject’ (BBTS). Latest book is poetry in Merthyr vernacular, Sofa Surfin.( Carreg Gwalch). Mike will  be reading from my latest book ‘Bring the Rising Home!’

Voices on the Bridge is working toward something big keep a look out for  the posts and up[ dates!

Rob Cullen. Voices on  the Bridge.

In the same year (1979) that Margaret Thatcher was elected as Britain’s first ever female PM, the Red Rhondda upheld its radical tradition by appointing Annie Powell as Britain’s first ever female communist mayor. Powell held office for a year – Thatcher, unfortunately, lasted a lot longer than that. My favourite fact about Annie Powell is that while attending a conference in Moscow as a delegate of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1960, she impressed Soviet leader, Nikita Kruschev, with her rendition of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.

Powell was born at Ystrad, Rhondda, and grew up in a Welsh-speaking, Nonconformist home. She attended Pentre Grammar where the school motto was Hog Dyd Fwyel (Wet the Battle-Axe) – an old Chartist rallying cry. She first became interested in politics while completing a teacher training course in Barry. During the General Strike of 1926 she became radicalised, initially joining the Labour Party and then later, in 1938, the CPGB. Before becoming mayor in 1979 she had served as a communist councillor in the Rhondda for twenty years. She died in 1986.