Now I don’t if you have been to this part of the world on the weekend but it’s damn scary when you don’t know your way around, are Cardiff born and are there only to read poetry. It’s a goddam death sentence. Though thankfully nobody spoke to us and after walking around in circles for nearly 30 minutes we did locate the Spar and filled our bags with slightly better red wine, beer, cupcakes, and Siôn’s essential ration of Haribo. It was at this point walking back to the gallery that Siôn proceeded to inform me of the uses of Haribo, how it can be used as an accelerant to counter the effects of fatigue, hunger, drunkenness and relieve the symptoms of many ills which as yet have no known cure. And so we were back in the gallery, listening attentively, guzzling wine and kicking back in Tinkerbell’s fairytale poetry bubble.


It has to be said that 98% of the performers/readers/poets were of the highest standard. A few of them I knew already but was pleased to hear the work of those I wasn’t yet familiar with. Everybody was using crowd pleasers, things they’ve won competitions with, had published etc. but it was also a great testing ground for brand new, straight out of the note book poems. The other 2% of poets were made up of one man who was a cross between the Igor the butler from Count Duckular and Terry Savalas, and read the most tiresome drivel I’ve ever ever heard ever no exceptions; and of course the other part of the 2% were the goth/emo/Welsh American sympathiser poets who read Ginsberg over and over and over and over and over. This particular breed of poet thinks that Allen Ginsberg is the only true poet in the world, and not only do they love to turn up at nearly every poetry event to reel off his work from start to finish but they like to do it in a mock American accent. They can of course be forgiven as they are reading poetry after all, and might one day pick up another book by a different author, but they make the mind very tired indeed, and I found myself digging my nails into the palm of my hands.


In fact as pm was turning to am, many people had left, leaving only a few hardcore poets swamped in red light reading classic verse in soft, make you go to sleep voices. This had an effect on my comrade Siôn Tomos Owen who at 2am or there about decided he would go off in search of a Swansea sofa and leave me to suffer delirium and drunkenness all alone. Thankfully before he departed he handed me his dressing gown which had a large bar of chocolate and some Haribo stashed in the pocket. This dressing gown was an almost life saver as at about 5am I found myself in dire need of rest and so made my way to the 3rd floor of the building to crash. This would have been a good idea had I not picked the only room with a broken window, and the dressing gown would have been perfect had it been long enough to cover all of me instead of just one half.


At 10am sharp I was rudely awakened by Susie Wild who needed someone to take to the stage urgently as we were down to 4 people. The lightweight poets who require beds were to turn up an hour later so I had to keep the show going. Early morning sets are not my forte, however, in a room with only 4 people, with big comfy sofas, I found it to be an easy hour indeed, and I managed to test at least 30 unpublished pieces. In fact I can say with absolute certainty it was the best set I’ve ever


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