The poetic nightingale is so familiar it seems hardly to merit serious attention. Yet its ubiquity is significant, suggesting associations with erotic love, pathos and art that cross culture and history. This book examines the different nightingales of European literature, starting with the Greek myth of Philomela, the raped girl, silenced by having her tongue cut out, and then transformed into the bird whose name means poet, poetry and nightingale simultaneously. Moving from the classical to the Christian worlds, Jeni Williams discusses nightingales and nature in the early church and sees the emergence of the figure as an emotive emblem of the aristocracy in mediaeval vernacular debate poetry. Her final chapters use the nightingale and the myth to examine Elizabeth Barrett Browning's struggle for an active female voice in Victorian poetry.

Threading together poems that are deeply interested in people's personal stories, voices, and conversations, this collection confronts the subjects of vulnerability, the abuse of power, and the complexities of loss. Penned by a leading Welsh feminist, these pieces look out to the wider world and discuss global themes, including immigration, ageing, and sexual expression.

One of the most written-about figures in Welsh cultural life, working with some of the best actors and designers, Thomas has consistently forced the pace of theatre, television, and film in Wales. House of America, released as a much-acclaimed film in 1997 is about alienated youths stranded in a one-street town in South Wales subsumed by American industry and culture with no jobs, no money, and no hope. Song from a Forgotten City is an unsentimental, urban, madly imaginative and lyrical piece. While the rich, anecdotal writing of Gas Station Angel creates a whole world out of a handful of characters.

Meandering ,walking without necessarily a plan to arrive, to take in the scene, to explore, to experience. This is what this book is about. It's an attempt at a sideways glance at the cultural activity bubbling under the surface, deliberately choosing five very different artists, whose vital off-centre work benefits from being produced away from the pressure of the dominant metropolitan culture. This variety gives a sense of the rich fluctuations, the oddity and creativity that exist at every level of a Welsh culture in the midst of change. The artists, the writers and editor have collaborated to produce a "performance on paper." Artists Featured Writers; Eddie Ladd Sarah Broughton; Megan Lloyd Maria Donovan; Daniel Morden Jeff Teare; Peter Bodenham Jeni Williams; Neale Howells Rachel Trezise