Gwyneth Lewis Readings
'Readers will enjoy discovering this writer of extraordinary gifts.’ – Publishers Weekly, on First Rain in Paradise
'Lewis has long been a writer of rare skill, but this latest shows her at the height of her imaginative and intellectual powers.’ – Mab Jones, Buzz Magazine
Gwyneth Lewis was Wales’s National Poet from 2005 to 2006, the first writer to be given the Welsh laureateship. She composed the words on the front of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, which opened in 2004. Her sixth poetry collection in English, First Rain in Paradise, was published by Bloodaxe in March 2025. Gwyneth headlined at the StAnza International Poetry Festival on 15 March 2025 and at Cambridge Literary Festival on 24 April (with Pascale Petit), with more festival readings to follow. She launched her book online with Bloodaxe on 25 March 2025 (scroll down for the video).
In this new collection, Gwyneth Lewis’s highly inventive poems trace an interior landscape carved out by the trauma of childhood emotional abuse through subsequent chronic ill health and towards a hard-won resurrection. These accounts of living in and emerging from the dark wrestle with the angel of language. Suffering does not preclude humour and may, in fact, require it, in poems written from the shadows but committed to the light. Gwyneth Lewis has won wide acclaim for her versatile and varied writing across genres, most notably in her award-winning poetry in both English and Welsh. This book shows a deepening of her technical, imaginative and intellectual resources which are challenged and exercised to the full. The poems map uneasy terrains with realism and – most importantly – with joy.
Gwyneth's first six books of poetry in Welsh and English were followed by Chaotic Angels: Poems in English (2005) from Bloodaxe, which brings together the poems from her English collections, Parables & Faxes, Zero Gravity and Keeping Mum, and by A Hospital Odyssey (2010), and Sparrow Tree (2011), winner of the Roland Mathias Poetry Award (Wales Book of the Year) in 2012.
Gwyneth Lewis composed the words on the front of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, opened in 2004. She was Wales’s National Poet from 2005 to 2006, the first writer to be given the Welsh laureateship. In 2014 she dramatised her book-length poem A Hospital Odyssey for the BBC, broadcast on Radio 4's Afternoon Drama, and delivered her Newcastle/Bloodaxe Poetry Lectures, published in Quantum Poetics (Bloodaxe Books, 2015). She lives in Cardiff and teaches regularly for Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English in the US. She was Artist in Residence at Balliol College, Oxford in 2023-25; she did her doctorate there and was elected an Honorary Fellow. She received a Cholmondeley Award in 2010 for a distinguished body of writing, and in 2022 she was awarded an MBE for her services to literature and mental health.
Her prose books include Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book about Depression (Flamingo, 2002), Two in a Boat: A Marital Voyage (Fourth Estate, 2005), The Meat Tree: new stories from the Mabinogion (Seren, 2010), and Nightshade Mother: A Disentangling (Calon, 2024), a Guardian Book of the Year choice.
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A starred review of Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis’s First Rain in Paradise is featured in the US publication Publishers Weekly of 13 February 2025. US distribution is by Consortium Book Sales from 20 May 2025.
‘The bracing latest collection from Welsh poet Lewis traces an arc from the trauma of maternal abuse…through aftershocks of chronic illness, self-harm, and shame…to recovery (“I am found”). Her lines both stun and revive, moving between Plathian imagery… and disarming candor (“Underneath, I’m a bit of a sweetie”). The collection radiates hard-won self-possession… Readers will enjoy discovering this writer of extraordinary gifts.’ – Publishers Weekly, starred review of First Rain in Paradise
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-78037-733-9
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Gwyneth Lewis was interviewed about her memoir Nightshade Mother on BBC Radio 4's The Verb on 12 January 2025. She also read her poem 'Missing' from First Rain in Paradise.
Still available on BBC Sounds. Gwyneth is introduced at 23:35 and reads the poem from 32:50.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0026v0r
An in-depth interview with Gwyneth Lewis was broadcast on the first episode of the new series of RTE Radio 1’s Poetry People on Sunday 27 April 2025. She was speaking to host Rachael Hegarty and reading poems from First Rain in Paradise.
The programme starts at 7:52. Gwyneth features from 21:35.
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/poetry-people/2025/0427/1509768-poetry-people-sunday-27-april-2025/
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FORTHCOMING READINGS & WORKSHOPS
Sunday 29 June, 8pm
Ledbury Poetry Festival: Nightshade Mother & First Rain In Paradise
Burgage Hall, Ledbury
Wales’s first National Poet, Gwyneth Lewis MBE, shares readings from her memoir Nightshade Mother and her new collection First Rain in Paradise. With her characteristic blend of technical brilliance and disarming candour, Lewis explores the impact of childhood abuse, and the powerful tendrils it wraps around a life. While trauma might be the starting point, Gwyneth’s work is often joyful, and leads, like a veritable Pandora’s box, to hope.
Tickets: £14. Book online here.
Monday 30 June, 10am
Ledbury Poetry Festival: 'From Fear to Delight' workshop with Gwyneth Lewis
Heritage Centre, Ledbury
Why is the prospect of writing, or failing to write, so frightening? How can we use this fear to push us forward imaginatively? Using a combination of readings and class exercises, this session will consider how fear can be a fertile source of energy, leading us towards a broader definition of delight and into new creative configurations.
£26. Book places here.
Shute Festival in Dorset, Saturday 27 September 2025
Gwyneth Lewis will share readings from her memoir Nightshade Mother and her new poetry collection First Rain in Paradise.
Details to follow.
Further festival readings at which Gwynenth Lewis will be reading from her memoir:
Monty Lit Festival, Saturday 7 June 2025, 12 noon
https://montylitfest.com/?page_id=7518
Battersea Arts Centre, Wednesday 25 June 2025
Details to follow.
PAST EVENTS AND RECORDINGS
Online launch reading by Gwyneth Lewis, Kate Potts & Arundhathi Subramaniam
Tuesday 25 March 2025, 7pm
Bloodaxe's online launch event for Gwyneth Lewis, Kate Potts and Arundhathi Subramaniam was livestreamed on 25 March 2025 and is now avilable on YouTube. All three poets were celebrating the publication of their new poetry books by reading live and discussing their work with each other and with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.
Gwyneth, Kate and Arundhathi joined the event live from Cardiff, Stroud and New York (via India). Their excellent readings were followed by a fascinating discussion around the shared themes in their work. Gwyneth read first in each set.
Gwyneth Lewis reads two poems
Gwyneth Lewis reads two poems from Chaotic Angels: Poems in English (Bloodaxe Books, 2005), 'Welsh Espionage' and 'Mother Tongue'. This film is from the DVD-book In Person: 30 Poets, filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce & edited by Neil Astley (Bloodaxe Books, 2008).
[15 January 2025]
