Merthyr Express column

6th Jan 11

Community Choir
Merthyr Aloud meets every Thursday from 1-3 pm. No experience is necessary, everyone is welcome to a warm and friendly atmosphere where songs from different musical traditions are taught by ear. For more details, please contact Natural Voice Practitioner Heather Murray on 01443 690289.

Poetry Competition
The 2011 Cardiff International Poetry Competition is now open and receiving entries. The first prize-winner will walk way with a cheque for £5000 for just one poem. Further prizes available are £500 for second place, £250 for third plus five runners up will receive £50 each. The competition is accessible to all; it doesn’t matter if you are an established poet or just dabble with verse now and then. Whether you’re from Merthyr or Malawi; Pwllheli or Portugal we want your poems.

The hard tasking of judging the 2011 competition will be down to mutli award-winning poets Don Paterson and Philip Gross. When entering make sure your poem is no longer than 50 lines, is unpublished, in English and not a translation of another author’s work and then send it to Academi with an entry form and payment. Entry fee is £6.00 per poem. The Cardiff International Poetry Competition is administered by Academi with the financial support of Cardiff Council.
Closing date is Friday, 25th March 2011. To receive an entry form, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to: Academi, CIPC11 Entry Form, Mount Stuart House, Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff, Wales, UK, CF10 5FQ. For more information contact Academi: 029 2047 2266 / post@academi.org

Open Mic Night
The next Open Mic Night at the Imperial Hotel, Pontmorlais, welcomes poet and author Paul Groves on Thursday, January 13th at 7.30pm. Open Mic Nights are free entry, supported by MTCBC and Academi. For further information please contact: (01685) 725382 arts@merthyr.gov.uk.
Visiting author Paul Groves was born in Gloucester in 1947 and has lived in Wales and in the Forest of Dean. He has been a Gregory Award recipient and a major prize winner in numerous competitions. His work has appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including Introduction 3 (Faber), The Bright Field (Carcanet), Burning the Bracken (Seren). He is a Creative Writing lecturer and Open College of the Arts tutor with over 30 years’ teaching experience. In 2007 and for an unprecedented second time, Paul won first prize in the Times Literary Supplement competition for his poem ’The Mauve Tam-o’-Shanter’. The prize was judged anonymously, with a reader ballot choosing from a shortlist of eleven poems. ’The Mauve Tam-o’-Shanter’ is included in Paul’s most recent collection Qwerty which was published by Seren in 2008. Paul also won this award in 1986, came second in 2001, and his poem ’The Hug’ was placed third in the 2008 competition. Over 3,000 entries were received worldwide.