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POETRY

"Invigorating and captivating... I couldn't put it down" – Poetry Review

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"Jordan is a masterful and sensitive poet... As a rule I never use the word genius, but Jordan almost forces me to write it it" – Poetry Salzburg Review

 

Links to my books are below, including my new pamphlet with Eyewear - please do get them from the publishers to support actual poetry publishing! Also they are good books! There's also a pair of sample poems below so you can see for yourself what I write. Or check out my videos page to see my work in action!

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Iarlles y ffynawn

(the lady of the fountain)

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In the bright frame of a girl's dress

time stops. A breeze rustles the gauze

which might be a sleeve, or skirts.

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Beyond, the landscape is very small.

Owein in his tiny, archaic cothes

scarlets and greens - runs over the grass

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and beyond the high wall of the garden

a few towers stretch into a blue heaven,

their flags hardly lifting in the light airs.

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And that is all. A dog barks and falls silent.

The girl's dress moves careless as brushwork

and the man runs - but from what, and to what?

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- from Regeneration (Seren, 2012)

A horse in the dark

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Quiet, quiet: do not dream

it is the owl parting fronds

of starlight, the water

muttering in abandoned mines.

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It is the stillness falling

and pooling, drop

after drop,

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it is the clouds spooling past on wires.

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Soon you will hear oaks

pushing their mouths to the soil's tap,

the rushes drinking

far down the hill.

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The lidless quartz blinks

at the snap of a twig's shadow;

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a nothing so breathless.

It champs at a giant sky.

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- from Moonrise (Seren, 2008)

Poetry is awesome! I've worked as a poet for many years, and I've performed across Europe as part of the Versopolis programme. My poetry has been translated into a number of European languages, and I've appeared at cool literary festivals like the Ledbury Poetry Festival and the Hay Literature Festival. So that was fun.

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Most of my writing comes from my relationship with Wales, and it informs the deep dive into British mythology that I took with the Red and White books of Regeneration. Growing up in Wales, and especially becoming aware of just how invisible the complexities of Welsh history and identity are to those brought up in the more general anglophone culture, has almost inexorably turned my writing to the unspoken political truths that underlie Welsh, Irish and Scottish otherness. I occasionally write articles that explore this aspect of artistic politics for poetry magazines such as Poetry Wales, with a particular focus on the political shape of forgotten arts like the Irish harp tradition and the old Welsh Cerdd Dant (as distinct from the modern Cerdd Dant tradition).

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If you're interested in hearing more about me or my work as a poet, you are welcome to send me an email on: meirion.jordan@googlemail.com

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