Pen'rallt Gallery Bookshop Pop Up Poetry Fortnight

For the first time in my life yesterday, I was poetry-bombed.

I'd called in at my local bookshop which now has a shiny new website Pen'rallt Gallery Bookshop, to collect a copy of Katharine Norbury's The Fish Ladder, which has come highly recommended. As I was browsing the bookshop displays, two poets stealthily crept in, took up positions by the bookcases and read poems - both their own and also by other poets - spontaneously choosing which one to read in response to the previous poem.

Pop-up poets Caroline Clark, (far left) and Agnes de Graaf with bookseller Diane Bailey and bookseller and author Helen Pendry (far right).

This event was part of a pop-up poetry festival that the bookshop has curated with the help of local people and businesses. Running until the 15 April and culminating in a 'Two Laureates' event with Gillian Clarke and Carol Ann Duffy at the Tabernacl in Machynlleth, the festival has a diverse programme. Events are still to come from Damian Gorman, Mererid Hopwood, Nicky Arscott, Cyril Jones and Hilaire Wood among others. More details can be found here and also on the programme below.

Should you ever find yourself in this corner of Wales, be sure to check out Pen'rallt Gallery Bookshop - it's bijou but brilliant.