poem

Just to let everyone know – The Fundraiser for the Children of Gaza marked the end of Voices on the Bridge. I am proud that over £1000 was raised! With big thanks to all the Poets & Speakers and especially to Jeff Storyville Books.

I decided to stop VOB for the personal reasons that I have a serous health problem ( caused if you want to know by prescribed medication).

Organising a poetry event like any monthly event is time consuming and I am so grateful for all the poets & performers that I’ve met and listened to along the way from 2016 until 2025. I am particularly grateful for the support of Dr Eric (Charles) Ngalle, PeterThabbitJones, MikeJenkins and FionaCullen.

That being said it is sometimes true that organising an event feels at time like a thankless task – there have been detractors and negative sniping! Indeed snide remarks about my poetry – and some very direct lack of generosity – All of it contributed to my decision to call it a day with Voices on the Bridge To those people I say – you didnt win!

As a friend once wrote “you have to remember that the person who decides to organise a poetry event with out pay, on their time – with all the stress experienced – does it out of love for poetry but doesn’t have to do it at all – and when they do decide to stop – then there is another hole where poetry will not be heard, appreciated and young and unpublished people will not be encouraged to take the chance!”

On the positive I have no regrets! I decided in 2016 to set up an event to encourage people to come and listen to poetry, spoken word and music in a place that at that time had little. So I want to thank everyone that I listened to – who performed without payment and gave their time and created something that was wonderful !

“Uncertain Times” was first published in 2016 with an unhappy beginning with the now defunct Octavio Press. In 2023 Rob Cullen decided to re-publish under his own title Celyn Books.

What people have said about “Uncertain Times”.

“Dark, insighful and well-crafted” – Carol White. Film Maker.

“This is an impressive first collection …. The poems have an easy strength and a directness that is strangely enchanting. Cullen most reminds me of Pablo Neruda not in style but sensibility. An apparent simplicity that is deceptively complex. There’s a lot going on here; love, loss, joy, work, family, trauma and the healing effects of nature. More like a selected poems than a debut, this is a rich, full and adroitly perceptive poetry that shows Cullen to be a quiet, strong and remarkable voice.”  Topher Mills, Poet.

“Your new “Uncertain Times” book is one of the best poetry books I have read – and read again – in a long time. 

“The range of poet Rob Cullen’s life’s experiences, including social worker anprobation officer, and his years spent in America contribute to a wide knowledge, real depth, and such open honesty to his poetry. His poems are ones without the safe bandages of literary refinements. He always speaks from the heart. It is a poetic voice offering, to take a phrase from a question he asks in his poem words and truth, ‘authentic songs’.                              He tackles many subjects in Uncertain Times/A Collection of Poetry and Photographs, each one powered by focus observation, aptly chosen words, and a voice that is often for those without a voice, the marginalised, the sufferers of a social and political system that is unfair, unequal and cruel. To quote from his poem An SOS from the Frontier, Cullen has ‘worked among the desolation, survivors of lives that might have flowered”. Uncertain Times so deserved a wide readership, for its originality, for its sheer bravery in exploring issues that a lot of poetry does not tackle, and for its healing moments in nature. This poet, though, also offers impressive poems about grief and deep love.                                            The photographs are a wonderful bonus, each one encouraging the reader to stop and think about them, to see depths in them too.”                             Peter Thabit Jones Welsh poet, dramatist and publisher Author (with Aeronwy Thomas) of the Dylan Thomas Walking Tour of Greenwich Village, New York.

“Uncertain Times” is available at @StoryvilleBook & Amazon now.

More Bridges Less Walls.