About the Poetry
Questions about themes, influences, Wales, nature, and the creative process.
When did you first realize that your writing wanted to speak on both a personal and cosmic scale?
I've always had a keen passion in the stars and planets from a young age. I'm constantly looking for the moon and where, she definitely a she, is in the sky. I love to characterise with the inspiration from classical myth but I am always open to interpretation.
The title of your earlier collection, Flames Into Dust, and your current manuscript, The Earth Still Shakes, both suggest transformation after upheaval. What draws you so strongly to the idea that destruction can become the beginning of renewal?
I've had my mishaps over the years. Relationship breakdowns and such. So, the idea of stability is quite rare to me in some sense. I've had to renew my confidence many times over to become the person I am today. This reflects on real terms as well. I have a keen interest in the sciences, chemistry and watching how reactions turn into something else.
Wales appears in your work not simply as a setting, but as a living presence shaped by language, history, and myth. How has being Welsh influenced your poetic imagination?
It's given me the freedom to see without the brunt of a city bearing down on me. I'm deeply rooted in the countryside, I like to immerse myself in it. The plants, trees, animals, weather. It's all sublime to me when it becomes a new experience.
In poems like "In Your Wild Light" and "Be the River Blossom," nature feels almost sentient, as though the landscape itself is speaking. Do you see the natural world as collaborator, witness, or healer?
Most definitely. Nature's healing powers are paramount. I'll try any herbal remedy once! You have to praise mother nature for her abilities.
Your poems move fluidly between love, grief, spirituality, and political unease. Do these themes emerge consciously, or do they reveal themselves only after the poem is written?
I like to keep myself updated with the news, what other people are actually saying, to find the poetry in their own bizarre landscapes. It's based on the interactions we have as a species being translated into the art we carry within ourselves.
Many of your poems feel like dreams fragmented, symbolic, and emotionally charged rather than strictly narrative. How do you know when a poem is complete if it resists conventional explanation?
I'm working on 3 or 4 fragmented poems at the same time. Each bringing their own distinct flow, if there is any. I focus mainly on the images being quite punchy, romantic, comforting, enlightening or wanting the element of teaching from experience.
Your work draws on dragons, stars, oceans, forests, and seasons. What is it about elemental imagery that allows you to express what ordinary language cannot?
The world changes every day, and we change with it. That's my main grasp.
There is a recurring tension in your poetry between fragility and resilience. Is that duality central to how you understand both poetry and life?
Yes, from experience, starting again is not unfamiliar to me but I have learnt to see it with positive light and shape it into the world I see around me.
Travel to Ireland, Japan, and other places of spiritual significance, has influenced your work. How do these journeys expand or deepen your connection to Wales?
Each have their own myth. I have been to many places around the world and I've learnt a hell of a lot from each place. It's nice to be able to find connections all over the world.
For readers encountering your poetry for the first time, what do you hope they feel, even if they cannot fully "explain" every image?
That the image lingers, that they can reflect on whatever they are doing and find the spontaneity of inspiration. My aim is to connect with artists. Feed their imagination.
Career & Craft
Publishing, revision, influences, and the discipline of writing.
Your poetry has been featured in the Versopolis Review, introducing your work to an international audience. What did that recognition mean to you as a poet at the beginning of your publishing journey?
It's great to be able to say so quickly about recognition. I understand this process is a long journey and I'm just baby in the industry starting out but I'm glad my work has resonated enough to be taken seriously on a global stage.
Poetry often asks writers to be emotionally vulnerable. Was there a particular poem in this collection that felt especially difficult to write?
No, these were a lot of my first attempts if I'm honest. Recently, in the last couple of years, I have been delving further into some emotional constructs and how they effect our perceptions. This has led to a lot more discipline and more of an ongoing dialogue between life and my work.
Your work blends mythology, philosophy, and lived experience. Which writers, poets, or traditions have most shaped your voice?
Rumi, Hafez, people from the beats generation such as Allen Ginsberg. I travel the world when I read my poetry, currently I am searching for more eastern European poets whether modern or recommended classics.
Many poets describe revision as an act of refinement. Does your editing process feel more like sculpting, pruning, or listening?
Sculpting first, from what I've listening to. Many poems are created off the back of deep conversations, life's struggles, unknown truths, dark places we fear to visit.
The collection explores faith and doubt side by side. How important is spiritual questioning to your work?
Questioning not so much. It depends on how much research you do into a topic. I find spirituality quite wishy washy. I'm more about faith.
Your poems often hold contradictory emotions simultaneously love and fear, beauty and violence, hope and despair. Do you think poetry is uniquely suited to holding these tensions?
Definitely. Each with their own paradox and contrast. Especially when you are taking reflective walks on your own through the countryside.
Offbeat
Lighter, fun questions about symbols, place, and inspiration.
If one of your recurring symbols a dragon, a crow, or a butterfly had to become your official mascot, which would you choose?
Most likely a butterfly. They represent delicacy of doing their own work to transform from a chrysalis into the beautiful, free roaming creature they are.
If Wales itself could read your poetry, which poem do you think it would claim as its favourite?
One called Castle Carew or anything about the lovely changeable weather they have!
When you visit an ancient stone circle or a Shinto temple, do you take notes immediately, or do you just stand there hoping the poem arrives later?
I'm visualising the area, finding what stands out, what conversations are happening around me. Most of the time I am taking notes on my walking journey. It can get tricky!
In Depth
Honest reflections on the harder edges of poetry, culture, and identity.
Some readers may find your poetry challenging or deliberately elusive. Do you believe poetry should always be understandable, or is mystery part of the experience?
Mystery is a part. There are facts scattered throughout whether you can see them or not I guess is how much ability you have to read through something that could test flow.
Your work often confronts grief, addiction, fractured relationships, and social injustice. Do you worry about exposing too much of your personal world through your poetry?
No, my boundaries are broad. Like I said I immerse myself into how I feel about situations. They have shaped who I have become and the environments I choose to share with others.
Welsh culture and language continue to face pressures in the modern world. Do you see your poetry as a form of cultural preservation, or is that too narrow a description?
Certainly do. Sharing what you identify with is the root of passion.
Much of your work suggests that beauty and suffering are inseparable. Do you think healing requires confronting darkness rather than escaping it?
Definitely. You must have a brave heart to dive into worlds of silence.