Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch

A pamphlet, Stranded in Ithaca, published by the Redbeck Press in 1998 was followed by an acclaimed first full collection from Seren, Rockclimbing in Silk, in 2001, which confirmed Samantha as an idiosyncratic poet with a startling imagination and a true facility for sensuous and arresting imagery. The recipient of a Hawthorden Fellowship in 2005 to complete her second collection, Not In These Shoes, she is the first Welsh poet to join the prestigious Picador list.

Samantha’s poems have appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, Agenda, Poetry Wales, Poetry London, the Forward Anthology and on BBC Radio 3. She has received awards for her work from the Society of Authors (2007) and Literature Wales (1997 and 2002). In 2012 Samantha was Leverhulme writer in residence at the National Wool Museum and the work resulting from this, Lime & Winter (Rack Press, 2014) was a finalist for the Michael Marks Award. In 2014 she held a residency at the Dylan Thomas Boathouse to mark the centenary of the poet’s birth and in 2015 was awarded an Arts Council of Wales Creative Wales Award. Samantha runs a writer's retreat on the Wales Coastal Path in New Quay

www.writebythecoast.co.uk www.writebythecoast.co.uk

[first published in 2008, updated November 11, 2020] Bibliography

Stranded on Ithica (pamphlet), Redbeck Press, Bradford, 1998
Rockclimbing in Silk, Seren, Bridgend, 2001
Not In These Shoes, Picador, London, 2008
Banjo, Picador, 2012
Lime & Winter, Rack Press, 2014

Reviews

"Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch's lines are full of beauty, sometimes gorgeous, sometimes stark. But this is never decoration; it is a responsible beauty, implicating us in the essential human situations, life, death and survival, she explores." - PHILIP GROSS

"There's a lovely peremptoriness in Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch's poetry. She's like a nurse with a scalpel: she heals with cuts. "Feel the blade just here/at the tip. See the nicks in the flint?" she asks in 'Tomahawk'. Everything is close to the nerve, everything under cool emotional pressure. The cuts blossom into freshness and colour. And delight, the delight borne out of precision of sound and an exquisite command of register. She grows more authoritative as she goes on." - GEORGE SZIRTES



Links

Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch’s home page
Visit Samantha’s website for poems and updates of events.


Three Poems at Transcript

[updated November 11, 2020]