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Rhys Owain Williams

@rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social

600 followers 1K following 150 posts

Writer of poetry, fiction and other things | That Lone Ship (Parthian Books) | Hay Festival Writer At Work | He/Him | https://linktr.ee/rhysowainwilliams

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Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Oct 18

It’s #OCDAwarenessWeek. Here’s a poem I wrote after being diagnosed with OCD a couple of years ago, originally published in Field’s issue on the theme of ‘control’.

Here's What Happens When You Enter a Black Hole. Of all the ways I’m afraid to die, falling into a black hole has become less of a concern in adulthood. I no longer fear the great void will open up at the end of my childhood street, a suburban supernova at the turn to Enfield Close. Instead, now I worry about cardiovascular disease, bomb plots, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Is my uneven skull harbouring brain tumours? The doctor says No. The night before another birthday, I find a cluster of grey hairs in my beard. My body still surprises me. Last week, it brought a deep splinter to the surface of my finger, presented it from the wound like a gift.

Quietus enveloping his deathbed, the post-Christian poet Wallace Stevens sought Catholicism’s comforting embrace. Empty space will do that to you. For years after he died, my grandmother still played my grandfather’s lottery numbers. Now, each year, I retrace her Good Friday pilgrimage to the chip shop for battered cod. Bring her back too. But the dead people I know are far quieter than I’d like them to be. When the landing light pings on in the middle of the night, I know it’s just a malfunction in the switch. Once you reach a certain age, the appearance of a black hole above your house seems less likely. Still, one minute you can be taking washing down from the line,

that mix of sun-dried polyester and fabric softener, and all of a sudden your stepfather has died all over again. I used to think the best way to control intrusive thoughts was to think them to death, follow each to their illogical conclusion. Now I try to let them pass by like trains in the night. Alight as soon as possible if one picks me up off-guard. But my mind is quite amusing really. Constantly ruminating upon death. Collecting its little trinkets without my permission. Would you laugh if I told you that Google Earth makes me anxious? That whole 3D world without people where you can plunge to the depths south of Newfoundland to see CGI rusticles hang from The Titanic’s hull.

The News says that one treasure of the thawing permafrost is a mammoth bone. A petrified gift from those who roamed what were then Arctic grasslands. Just north, now, of Moscow’s pale moth flitting above the nuclear button’s flame. Of all the ways I’m afraid to die, falling into a black hole has become more of a concern in adulthood. External forces stretching me thinner than paper. The mirage of control disappearing, my narrative unravels. And just beyond the event horizon, each time seeming a little more ajar: the universe’s exit door. www.rhysowainwilliams.com. First published in Field #18.

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Reposted by Rhys Owain Williams

Natalie Ann Holborow @natholborow.bsky.social · Sep 7

A little extract of Wild Running in The Independent this morning, exploring Pen Y Fan and focusing on women's safety in running 🏃‍♀️ @serenbooks.bsky.social

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/w...

Wild running gives me freedom, but I’m always looking over my shoulder

In this abridged extract from award-winning poet and writer Natalie Holborow’s new book ‘Wild Running’, she follows a trail around the Brecon Beacons in South Wales while reflecting on women’s safety

www.independent.co.uk

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Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Sep 6

Couple of short writing sessions yesterday and today. The middle of the poem as it stands is a complete mess, as I try my best to rework existing lines that I'm fond of but now no longer fit. Need to chuck all the square pegs out at this point I think, understand I'm now working with round holes.

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Sep 1

Back on it today though, pulling it apart and trying to put it back together again with minimal rewriting. It's not looking very healthy at the moment. Every reworked line is weaker. My love of the sestina form is weakening too. Might just go binge watch The Osbournes and eat knockoff Oreos instead.

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Sep 1

Might not surprise you to learn that they were premature celebrations. Reading over that first draft on Saturday evening, I realised I'd put some end words in the wrong places, knocking the whole poem out. Haven't been able to think about it since, let alone work on it haha.

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 30

Best stairwell in Wales (if there is such a thing)

Stairwell with beige tiled walls featuring vertical blue and brown stripes. A wooden handrail with black metal supports runs along the stairs, which are covered in light gray flooring with black stair edges.

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 30

Not always productive of course, but I usually at least get *something* down on the page that I can later use/edit/rewrite/turn into something else. This morning it’s a completed first draft of this sestina. Now to celebrate with a turn around the shelves of the Waterstones around the corner!

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Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 30

Every Saturday morning I go to a coffee shop between 7am–9am and just write. Started at the beginning of this year and it’s been the best thing I’ve done to cultivate the writing routine that I’ve never had but always wanted. Even if I don’t write during the week I have these 2 hours as a baseline.

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 29

As predicted there were doubts reading back what I’d written so far. But cracking on. Still enjoying the form, which is honestly a lovely surprise (as was the childfree afternoon). I often remind myself that when I started writing poetry it was an enjoyable hobby. Good to get back to that feeling.

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Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 29

Surprise writing session on the sestina this afternoon when my MIL came down unannounced to take my son to the park while my other son was at my mother’s. Admit I sat scrolling on my phone for 30 mins first (decompression?) but finally dragged myself to the computer and wrote another stanza.

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 28

I've created six two-column tables in my Google Doc, with reminders of the rotating teleutons in the thin column on the right. Almost three stanzas written now + ideas for the envoi. Need to just ride this sestina wave and see how far it takes me. I'm sure the next writing session will bring doubts!

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 28

Today I love sestinas. Can't get enough. They're now the only form I want to write in. I get like this. Whenever I get around to painting & decorating, I spend the first hour or so thinking 'I should do this for a living!' But by the time I'm tidying up and cleaning brushes I've had my fill.

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 28

Second writing session today. I had some spare time to spend on this poem earlier this week, but decided to submit existing poems to magazines instead. And paint a wall in my house that's been prepped but unpainted for too long. Is there such a thing as productive procrastination?

Reposted by Rhys Owain Williams

Mari Ellis Dunning 🖋️ @mariellisdunning.bsky.social · Aug 19

The term 'wits' / 'witsh' first appeared in William Salisbury's Welsh-English dictionary in 1547, borrowed from the English 'witch.' Before then, the Welsh didn't really have a word to describe witches. Accusations in Welsh records are full of 'witses' & 'witshes.'

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Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 23

Is posting about this on Bluesky a form of procrastination? Something to distract me from the actual writing of the poem? Yes, definitely. But (I think) I now have my six repeating end words, and also some lines using them filled in—this feels like good progress!

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 23

Though T.S. Eliot is often quoted as insisting that 'no vers is libre...', free verse is definitely my comfort zone—but I'm determined to spend time writing outside it for this poem. Send good thoughts (and examples of sestinas).

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 23

But at least I don't have to deal with fixed metre or beat count! Because I've never been able to nail those (all the sonnets and ballads I've written are slightly off and unpublished). And don't even get me started on cynghanedd—what a skill it is to be able to write englynion.

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 23

First writing session: the journey ahead feels more impossible than possible. Reading examples of the form, each rotating teleuton sends me back to seek its origin, and I feel like the woman in the Nazaré Confusa meme. I wasn't good at maths in school and atm this feels more like maths than poetry.

a close up of a woman 's face with a mathematical equation behind her .

ALT: a close up of a woman 's face with a mathematical equation behind her .

media.tenor.com

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 23

Beginning my journey with this introduction by Terrance Hayes on the Poetry Foundation, where he calls the form 'a linguistic Jenga puzzle' alongside other vividly-drawn (but daunting) metaphors. www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/159599/your-do-it-yourself-sestina

Your Do-It-Yourself Sestina

Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.

www.poetryfoundation.org

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Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 23

I've never written a sestina before, but I've had an idea for one for a couple of years now without ever sitting down to write it. Finally pushing myself to get at least a first draft ready by the end of this month, and thought I would 'live tweet' (or whatever the Bluesky version is) as I go.

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Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 20

This is the first poem I’ve had published about him, and is part of a collection in progress. Diolch to the editors of Gutter for choosing it for this latest issue, so pleased to be included in its pages: guttermag.co.uk/getgutter/p/gutter-32.

Gutter 32 — Gutter

Poetry from Iona Lee, Scotland’s Makar Pàdraig MacAoidh, Marjorie Lofti and Edwin Morgan Poetry Award Winner Michael Mullen. Fiction from Shona McCombes, Sarp Sozdinler and George Miller. Essays from ...

guttermag.co.uk

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 20

He died suddenly at home in Wales while I was on holiday in Iceland—his death opening a door into a surreal misery that soon widened to include us all. The afternoon he died, I'd lit a candle in the Hallgrímskirkja for the departed members of my family, not yet knowing he’d joined them.

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Aug 20

I’ve got a poem in the new issue of @gutter.bsky.social, available to buy at guttermag.co.uk/getgutter/p/gutter-32. ‘The First Law of Thermodynamics’ is written in memory of my stepdad, who died in March 2020 a week before the first lockdown. Can’t believe over 5 years have now passed.

Hand holding a copy of Gutter magazine, Issur 32. The cover is red with bold vertical strokes of red, orange and yellow paint in the centre. The title ‘Gutter’ is printed in large yellow text at the top, with the subtitle ‘New Scottish and international writing’ beneath.

A close-up photograph of an open magazine showing a poem titled ‘The First Law of Thermodynamics’ by Rhys Owain Williams, with the subtitle ‘i.m. my stepfather.’ The page number 44 is visible in the top left corner, and ‘Gutter 32’ in the top right. The poem is cut off, but the visible text reads:

The week before the world closed down,
I lit a candle in the Hallgrímskirkja
not yet knowing you had gone.
The coin dropped in the church’s box
a ritual copied from my mother,
who lights them to remember her own.

Though I don’t believe in divine light,
within a house of prayer’s quiet pause
I light a candle for her too: the grandmother
that Alzheimer's made sure I barely knew.
A woman certain in her faith—white-haired
pilgrim to Golgotha’s skull, the empty tomb.
But the candle lit on that icy Reykjavík afternoon
now belongs to you.

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Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Jul 24

Sometimes that’s one of the most thrilling feelings in the world, and other times I’m like “oh we’re just writing a poem now are we? But I was in the middle of enjoying this walk/watching Netflix/doing laundry 🙄”

Rhys Owain Williams @rhysowainwilliams.bsky.social · Jul 24

Been thinking this week how most of the poems I write come from sitting down and choosing to work on something, but every so often that spark of inspiration hits and all of a sudden an entire first draft has appeared out of nowhere.

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Reposted by Rhys Owain Williams

Natalie Ann Holborow @natholborow.bsky.social · Jul 15

This has been a dream to work on and a nice break to write about history, creativity and falling down hills on my backside in beautiful South Wales. Out September 15th! Pre-order here: www.serenbooks.com/book/wild-ru...

#running #writing #trailrunning

Seren Books @serenbooks.bsky.social · Jul 15

Coming soon: @natholborow.bsky.social encourages you to get out and explore South Wales in trainers in her new book ‘Wild Running’, publishing 15 September. Available to pre-order now www.serenbooks.com/book/wild-ru...

This cover shows a vibrant illustration of Three Cliffs Bay with a runner in bright leggings stepping into the foreground. The text reads: Wild Running South Wales. Natalie Ann Holborow.

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