VoicesontheBridge is a great fan of Abeer’s work and its great that she will be reading at our event again!
Abeer Ameer is a poet of Iraqi heritage who lives in Cardiff. Her poems have appeared widely in journals including The Rialto, Magma, The Poetry Review, and Poetry Wales. Her debut poetry collection, Inhale/Exile, was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2022. She is currently working on her second poetry collection and regularly shares readings of poems on her YouTube channel.
This fundraiser to support the Children of Gaza is organised and presented by Rob Cullen of Pontypridd’s VoicesontheBridge. Performing wirth Abeer Ameer will be Mike Jenkins, Sabrin Hasbun, Patrick Jones, Rob Cullen, Leanne Evans, Des Mannay, Tracey Rhys, Fiona Cullen, Ben Wildsmith and Greg Cullen.
VoicesontheBridge is an evening of poetry, spoken word and song. This event is stacked with great poets & speakers book early to ensure your place!
Elizabeth Heath of RCT Palestine Solidarity Campaign will be speaking about the upcoming Palestinian youth visit to RCT and they will have a stall with info leaflets.
Menna Elfyn couldn’t be with us but has generously donated 20 copies of – Y Bachgen a’r Wal – The Boy and the Wall made by the young people at Lajee Centre near the city of Bethlehem.
Three local artists have donated paintings to be autioned on the night Barabara Castle, Jenna Cullen and Gerhard Kress and the sale will be donated to the fundraiser.
There will also be food and music.
This event is part of The Pontypridd Great Big Community as Super Power Day.
The event could not take place without the support of the wonderful @StoryvilleBooks. Big thanks to Jeff!
Watch out for further posts with more information about the evening.
We hope you can join us and support the urgent need of the children of Gaza.
Mike Jenkins is Co-editor of ‘Red Poets’ magazine for 32 years , Mike Jenkins has been involved in the Palestinian solidarity movement for decades. His pamphlet ‘For Gaza’ ( Red Poets) raised nearly £500 for MAP. Mike’s latest book is ‘Shared Origins ‘ ( Seventh Quarry), a collaboration with poets David Lloyd and David Annwn. Forthcoming anthology ( as editor) is ‘We not me/ Ni nid fi’ (Culture Matters), radical poetry from Cymru.
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Organised and presented by Rob Cullen of VoicesontheBridge. Reading and performing with Mike Jenkins will be Sabrin Hasbun, Abeer Ameer, Patrick Jones, Rob Cullen, Leanne Evans, Des Mannay, Tracey Rhys, Fiona Cullen, Ben Wildsmith and Greg Cullen.
An evening of poetry, spoken word and song.
A member of RCT Palestine Solidarity Campaign will be speaking about the upcoming Palestinian youth visit to RCT and they will have a stall with info leaflets.
Menna Elfyn couldn’t be with us but has generously donated 20 copies of – Y Bachgen a’r Wal – The Boy and the Wall made by the young people at Lajee Centre near the city of Bethlehem.
Three local artists have donated paintings to be autioned on the night Barabara Castle, Jenna Cullen and Gerhard Kress and the sale will be donated to the fundraiser.
There will also be food and music.
This event is part of The Pontypridd Great Big Community as Super Power Day.
The event could not take place without the support of the wonderful @StoryvilleBooks. Big thanks to Jeff!
Watch out for further posts with more information about the evening.
We hope you can join us and support the children of Gaza.
40 years since the end of the 1984/85 Miners Strike.
Remembering.
Yesterday I went to Chapter Arts Centre to watch films made by Welsh independent film makers Chris Rushton & Chapter Video & Chapter Film Workshopbefore during and after the 1984/5 miners strike. It was an emotional reminder of my experience of returning to Wales in 1981 to do a social work training after nine years away .
One of the films we watched was of the fight to prevent the closure of Penrhiwceiber – a film made by miners of their community. My first placement for the Social Work course was in the Citizens Advice centre in Mountain Ash which neighbours Penrhiwceiber. I was shocked – an understatement – by the levels of deprivation and poverty in this close knit community. And shocked to see the statistics scrolled out on the film and to understand that the same levels of deprivation still holds its grip to this day.
My poem “Uncertain Times” was written during 1984. It is no coincidence that the front photograph of my poetry collection “Uncertain Times” is of the Naval Colliery, Penygraig, Rhondda taken in 1968 after its closure. It’s the place where the miners leader John Hopla in 1910 was arrested for “incitement” and as a result subjected to twelve months imprisonment with hard labour which broke his health and he died not long after his release.
With the rise of Farage and Reform in the South Wales Valleys the last verse seem strangely prophetic!
“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.
“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, probation 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.
Dead water is the nautical term for a phenomenon which can occur when there is strong vertical density stratification due to salinity or temperature or both. It is common where a layer of fresh or brackish water rests on top of denser salt water, without the two layers mixing.
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or water eddying beside a moving hull, especially directly astern.
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or a part of a stream where there is a slack current.
Rob Cullen artist, writer, poet. Rob runs “Voices on the Bridge” a poetry initiative in Wales. Walks hills and mountains daily with a sheep dog at his side.
Enunciated in 1907, Ne Temere requires that all children of a mixed marriage be brought up as Catholics. Before 1907 the tradition was that the boys in such a marriage would be brought up in the father’s faith and the girls in that of their mother.
Ne Temerre resulted in couples of both faiths being rejected by their families, particularly farming families, where the oldest boys who married a catholic would result in the Catholic children of that family inheriting the land. But the impact of Ne Temerre had much, much wider repercussions than this and its a subject that requires greater study. I would recommend “Different and the same” by Deirdre Nuttall.
Ne Temerre to all intents and purposes was a cleansing of Protestants from the Republic of Ireland.
“Under the stone eyes of Mary” is the title of a novel I am currently editing.
Being second generation Irish was confusing on many levels, returning “Home” raised further confusions.
Having a Catholic grandfather excluded by his farming family, and a Protestant grandmother excluded by her family provided a minefield when returning “Home”.
Rob Cullen artist, writer, poet. Rob runs “Voices on the Bridge” a poetry initiative in Wales. Walks hills and mountains daily with a sheep dog at his side.
Hi! my name is Sebastian (You can call me Seb!) ...welcome to my Blog. I'm a photographer from Worcester, Worcestershire, England. Thanks for dropping by! I hope you enjoy my work.
Celfypridd 