This Common Uncommon ~ Little Universe
An evening of poetry with Rae Howells and Natalie Ann Holborow. Chaired by Susie Wildsmith of Parthian.
Wednesday 27th November. Doors at 18:30. Event starts at 18:45
Book Space Cardiff, CF24 4NL
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This Common Uncommon by Rae Howells
Rae Howells is a poet, journalist and lavender farmer from Swansea. Her debut collection, The language of bees (Parthian), was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2023. She has previously won the Rialto Nature & Place and Welsh poetry competitions and been featured widely in journals including Magma, The Rialto, Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Acumen and Poetry Ireland. A keen environmentalist and a believer of the restorative power of wild places, she is poet in residence at Llanelli Wetland Centre. This Common Uncommon is her second poetry collection.
'Rae Howells’ latest collection of poetry evokes the wildness and beauty of an unspoilt corner of Swansea locally known as West Cross Common, part of a green corridor that runs from the tip of the Gower peninsula all the way to Swansea Bay... This Common Uncommon is a reminder of the power of poetry to tackle important issues with directness and the power of personal connection.' – Jenny White, the Western Mail
'This is glorious nature writing redolent with colour, texture, smell... Howells has written something worth reading, something driven by both her intense love of this place and her understanding that once such a place is lost, there is the dreadful, empty permanence about its passing' – Pat Edwards, London Grip
'Howells writes with sensitivity, empathy, liveliness and keen observation... Finely wrought, intelligent, and full of heart... [This Common Uncommon is] an important book that speaks for nature, land, and species which, too often, we see as silent: a vital tome at a time of urgency.' – Mab Jones, Buzz
Little Universe by Natalie Ann Holborow
Natalie Ann Holborow is a winner of the Terry Hetherington Award and the Robin Reeves Prize and has been shortlisted and commended for the Bridport Prize, the National Poetry Competition, the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, and the Cursed Murphy Spoken Word Award among others. Her writing residencies with the British Council, Literature Wales and Kultivera have seen her writing and performing poetry in Wales, Ireland, Sweden and India. She is the author of the poetry collections And Suddenly You Find Yourself, Small – both listed as Best Poetry Collections of the Year by Wales Arts Review – and, with Mari Ellis Dunning, the collaborative poetry pamphlet The Wrong Side of the Looking Glass. Little Universe is her third full collection. Natalie lives in Swansea, is a proud patron of local charity The Leon Heart Fund, and runs marathons to raise funds.
The poems in Natalie Ann Holborow’s third collection, Little Universe, are an exploration of tumultuous human emotions and nature’s ever-present rhythms.
Lives bustle within a busy hospital’s walls, humming against the Gower landscape that stretches beyond its windows. The tiny worlds of a wide cast unfold as they deal with their own emergencies, losses, recoveries, hopes and histories. Medical students stride the length of the corridor in rubber shoes, scars running the lengths of their lives. A janitor is crying in the Gents’, watching the flowers at the hospital entrance shrug themselves back into earth. The biblical Lilith offers knowledge from one woman to the other. And somewhere in the distance, a bunker dissolves into gold upon Pennard’s shoulder, dusk folding to sleep on Rhossili.
The characters in this book are all bound by the undying pulse of existence – yet their stories serve as a reminder that despite these stark contrasts, life persists.