Sustainable Wales Co-Founder Robert Minhinnick, and Laura Wainwright event at the Book Space Cardiff.
Poems from the Contemporary Welsh poster
About the book
Radically lyrical, politically astute, this new collection features six writers whose every word is an act of affirmation. As it must be, for their art to flourish beside one of the world’s great languages.
In Alcatraz: Poems from the Contemporary Welsh, we find youthful energies tackling climate change, global extinctions, even human life beyond our planet. Whether in Wales or Palestine, Manhattan or the island of Alcatraz itself, we learn that today’s Welsh language poetry, with its unique perspective, is as valid as any verse in the world. And, possibly, more vital.
If these translations take liberties, none are unforgivable. The spirit of each poem remains unblemished. Here, veteran writers, such as Menna Elfyn, Karen Owen and Iwan Llwyd, mix with the next generation’s Iestyn Tyne, Llyr Gwyn and Sian Northey. Alcatraz is an essential work for anyone interested in the good health of modern poetry in the UK.
About the poets
Robert Minhinnick was born in 1952 and lives in Porthcawl. He is a poet, novelist, essayist and critic. An established environmentalist, he is joint founder of Friends of the Earth Cymru, and the charity Sustainable Wales which was founded in 1997, for which he is a special advisor. His poems have twice won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem and his essays have twice won Wales Book of the Year. His previous Carcanet collection, Diary of the Last Man, was published in 2017 alongside a film of the same by Park6 Productions.
Laura Wainwright was born in Cardiff and grew up in Newport, Gwent, where she still lives. She attended school in Newport and Cardiff University where she attained a BA, MA and PhD in English Literature. Her PhD thesis focused on Anglophone Welsh literature and was later published as New Territories in Modernism: Anglophone Welsh Writing, 1930-1949 by the University of Wales Press. Laura has also published poetry pamphlets, Air and Armour (Green Bottle Press, 2021) – the outcome of a Literature Wales Writer’s Bursary – and Coedcernyw: among other things (Clutag Press, 2023). Thrall: Poems and Art, a collaboration with Robert Minhinnick featuring Laura’s poetry and artwork, was published in February 2025 by Seventh Quarry Press.