Circle Meeting Guest Speaker Peter Finch

Peter Finch is a poet, writer, performer, walker and literary entrepreneur living in Cardiff. He has been a publisher, organisation manager, periodical editor, event organiser, literary agent and literary promoter. He was at the forefront of the UK’s small press revolution in the 60s and the 70s with his magazine Second Aeon and pioneered performance poetry in Wales during the 1980s. From 1974 to 1995 he ran the Oriel Bookshop in Cardiff. From 1996 to 2011 he was Chief Executive of Yr Academi Gymreig / The Welsh Academy, an organisation later rebranded as Literature Wales.

He specialises in books about the Capital including the successful Real Cardiff series (4 vols – published by Seren Books), Edging The Estuary and the more recent Edging The City (Seren Books), together with The Roots Of Rock From Cardiff To Mississippi And Back (Seren). His latest books written alongside the work of photographer John Briggs are Walking The Valleys and Walking Cardiff.

If he’s anything from all the above he is a poet. His Collected Poems in two 500-page volumes appeared in 2022.

“This collection is a delight. A gallimaufry. A compendium of forms. A dictionary of discovery. A mixtape of marvels. A variorum of voices.” Steven Walling – Litter Magazine.

“Now in his mid-seventies, the shaven headed septuagenarian feels more culturally relevant than ever, not least because of his verve and iconoclasm. If, like him, you’ve an appetite for literary subversion, you’ll find his double volume Collected Poems good enough to eat.” Paul McDonald on The Collected Poems in London Grip, August 2022.

Since the early 1970s, Finch has been the principal innovator in Welsh poetry…..he deserves a Welsh knighthood.. Richard Kostelanetz, Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes.

“Finch has been one of the most influential literary figures in Wales of the last sixty years.” Gary Raymond in Abandon All Hope, Calon, April, 2024.

“Peter Finch is probably the greatest living performer in poetry that we’ve got”- Chris McCabe, National Poetry Librarian at The Southbank.

The meeting will take place at 7pm on Wednesday 14 May 2025. Everyone is welcome.

The meeting venue is the Taliesin Arts Centre (downstairs from the main auditorium), Swansea University Singleton Campus, Swansea SA2 8QD. There will also be a zoom link for those who can’t attend in person.

If you would like to join the meeting as a guest, please Contact the Secretary.