What a magical place Ty Newydd is, I've taught there countless times. 'Breaking Boundaries' was my second poetry course co-tutored with the very funny Daljit Nagra. Our guest reader was Karen McCarthy Woolf, who gave us an electric reading on Tuesday and who swam in the sea morning and night. On the last evening a boy passed through with his pet, Barnie the barn owl, and with his father who held a goshawk, just as I was going back to my room to collect notes. I thought how Welsh this was, how wizardish. I'd never stroked an owl before, a juvenile who felt like melting snow. We did work very hard that week. We taught hard and the group wrote many new poems, some breaking their own boundaries, A few are already getting them accepted for magazines, but it was a glorious haven and the sea sparkled on the horizon. Every now and again I'd walk down the lawn to the stile and just look at it, breathing it all in.
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| Goshawk |
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| It's hard working in the sun: Phoebe, Rachel and Roy working on their poems |
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| Karen McCarthy Woolf our superb guest reader, on the lawn |
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| Ty Newydd gardens with view of sea |
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| the gardens |
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| Penny contemplating the sea |
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| Daljit Nagra with me and some of the group in Criccieth Ice Cream Parlour |
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| Criccieth Castle |
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| Criccieth flowerboxes |
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