Alcatraz Poetry Event ticket

Join us for an evening of poetry and discussion to celebrate the launch of Alcatraz : Poems from the Contemporary Welsh. With Robert Minhinnick and Laura Wainwright

When: 1/5/26 18:30 start (doors 18:15)

Where: 26a Crwys Road, CF24 4NL

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There will be books available to buy at the event or you can preorder below. 

Book - £15.99 (£2 off the ticket price if you preorder the book)

There is an option to pay what you can as we would like to keep this event accessible for all. There is a limited number of PWYC tickets so please only use it if you need to.

Follow this link for PWYC 

About the book:

Radically lyrical, politically astute, this new collection features six writers whose every word is an act of affirmation. As it must be, for their art to flourish beside one of the world’s great languages.

In Alcatraz: Poems from the Contemporary Welsh, we find youthful energies tackling climate change, global extinctions, even human life beyond our planet. Whether in Wales or Palestine, Manhattan or the island of Alcatraz itself, we learn that today’s Welsh language poetry, with its unique perspective, is as valid as any verse in the world. And, possibly, more vital.

If these translations take liberties, none are unforgivable. The spirit of each poem remains unblemished. Here, veteran writers, such as Menna Elfyn, Karen Owen and Iwan Llwyd, mix with the next generation’s Iestyn Tyne, Llyr Gwyn and Sian Northey. Alcatraz is an essential work for anyone interested in the good health of modern poetry in the UK.

About the poets:

Robert Minhinnick was born in 1952 and lives in Porthcawl. He is a poet, novelist, essayist and critic. An established environmentalist, he is joint founder of Friends of the Earth Cymru, and the charity Sustainable Wales which was founded in 1997, for which he is a special advisor. His poems have twice won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem and his essays have twice won Wales Book of the Year. His previous Carcanet collection, Diary of the Last Man, was published in 2017 alongside a film of the same by Park6 Productions.

Laura Wainwright was born in Cardiff and grew up in Newport, Gwent, where she still lives. She attended school in Newport and Cardiff University where she attained a BA, MA and PhD in English Literature. Her PhD thesis focused on Anglophone Welsh literature and was later published as New Territories in Modernism: Anglophone Welsh Writing, 1930-1949 by the University of Wales Press. Laura has also published poetry pamphlets, Air and Armour (Green Bottle Press, 2021) – the outcome of a Literature Wales Writer’s Bursary – and Coedcernyw: among other things (Clutag Press, 2023). Thrall: Poems and Art, a collaboration with Robert Minhinnick featuring Laura’s poetry and artwork, was published in February 2025 by Seventh Quarry Press.

Accessibility:

We ask in our confirmation email if you have any access needs, we will do everything we can to accommodate them. If you would like to reach out before booking you can email us lily@bookspacecardiff.co.uk or use our contact form.

We are wheelchair accessible. We have a tempory ramp we can put out to get in over the small step and once inside the shop floor is even. If you want to find out more about how to get here, check out our about page.

Our refund policy:

If you can't make the event anymore after you've booked do let us know. If you tell us 24 or more hours before the event we will be able to refund your ticket price minus the processing fee that Shopify charges us for the original transaction.