There’s a moment, when writing a collection, where the work stops being a set of poems and starts becoming a place.
Reflections on writting Embers of the Valleys.
Embers of the Valleys grew out of that moment for me. What began as scattered lines and images slowly gathered into a landscape shaped by memory,
myth, and the quiet resilience of the Welsh valleys. I didn’t set out to write a book about belonging, but the valleys have a way of pulling you back to what matters.
As I wrote, I found myself returning to the textures of home: the coal dust that lingers in stories long after the mines have closed, the way mist clings to the hillsides,
the unspoken tenderness in the communities that raised me. These embers aren’t just remnants of the past. They’re the sparks that keep us warm,
the ones we carry forward even when we don’t realise it.
This collection became a way of honouring those sparks. It asked me to sit with grief and grit, with the beauty that hides in ordinary places, with the echoes of voices that shaped my own.
It taught me that poetry can be both a reckoning and a refuge.
Now that the manuscript is complete, I’m struck by how much it taught me about patience, about listening, and about trusting the slow burn of a story.
Embers of the Valleys is my attempt to hold a light to the places and people who shaped me, and to offer readers a space to recognise their own embers too.
Poetry across the generations.
Exploring the timeless reach of poetry and the dialogues it inspires.
Poetry has always had a quiet way of travelling further than we expect. It moves through centuries, crossing borders and shifting languages,
yet it still finds its way into the hands of children discovering rhythm for the first time and adults searching for meaning in the small hours.
Few art forms stretch so naturally across ages and eras.
What I love most is how poetry creates a shared space for thought. A poem can pause a busy mind, open a door to a feeling we didn’t know we needed to name,
or spark a conversation that might never have surfaced in ordinary life. Children approach poems with curiosity and play. Adults bring memory, experience, and sometimes a little armour.
Yet both groups meet the poem in the same place, guided by the same invitation to wonder.
In that way, poetry becomes a bridge. It lets us speak across generations, across time, and across the quiet distances between us.
It reminds us that language is not only something we use but something we inhabit. And when a poem resonates, it shows us that our thoughts
and questions are not as solitary as they sometimes feel.
