Real Cardiff - the truth about Europe's youngest capital. A irreverent, informed and thoroughly readable guide to the Capital of Wales in all its reinvented glory. Cardiff the multi-layered. Cardiff the multi-cultural. Cardiff the post-industrial. Cardiff the much bigger that you thought. Based-on and much extending Peter Finch's books for Seren, the Real Cardiff section of this site is an essential guide.
Real Cardiff, the original and first book, is now in its fourth printing, Real Cardiff Two extends the boundaries. Real Cardiff Three - The Changing City is the new one and you can check the content here. It was published on 26th November, 2009. The BBC story and photo slideshow is here. The Big Book of Cardiff (edited with Grahame Davies) collects contemporary writings by many hands. The Gardens, a typograhic realisation of part of Real Cardiff Three, was exhibited at the Waterloo Teahouse, Cardiff. They can be viewed here
Real Wales - based on the success of the Real Cardiff series. A book encompassing the whole country. Finch's Real Wales (Seren) is now available. View the Real Wales Flickr photostream here.
RSAW - For his work in these areas Peter Finch was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Architects of Wales (RSAW) in September, 2007. Read the citationBlog with Peter Finch at http://peterfinchpoet.blogspot.com/
The Peter Finch Archive is also one of the original writers' sites on the net. Here is collected information on self-publishing, on the poetry scene, Welsh literary links, examples of Finch's own poetry, prose and criticism, concrete, visual and experimental verse, a unique and avant-garde information resource on the poet R.S.Thomas, and a lot more.
Poetry - Finch's work can be read in Food, published Seren Books. His innovative The Welsh Poems has recently appeared from Shearsman. His fat Selected Later Poems is published by Seren. Download special purchase offer, three Finch titles for the price of two, here (44K pdf)
Zen Cymru - a new collection pf poetry will appear from Seren in April, 2010 with a launch at the Laugharne Weekend and the Guardian Hay Festival. More information. YouTube clip of Peter Finch reading from Zen Cymru at The Promised Land, Cardiff is here.
Audio Downloads - at 57 Productions thirty Peter Finch poems are available for download from 57's new iPoems. You can also view a film of Finch's The Way It Grows (Phil Hayes - camera, Pete Lewis -sound, Paul Beasley - Director) on 57's video-jukebox along with a flash animation by Peter Howard of the poem Blodeuwedd Translated. More work at the edge - check now
Second Aeon - (1966-1975) Peter Finch's historic magazine is available again. The past comes back to life with the Poetry Library's online collection of Poetry Magazines. Visit and see what issue 19-21, the huge final smash, along with issues 14 and 15 (recently uploaded) were actually like. Read second aeon's history onsite here.
Babylon Wales offers an extended interview which locates Peter Finch's with Cardiff, maps his verse and his attitudes to the avant garde and to Wales. "Finch is the godfather of Welsh literary experimentalism" says Babylon webmaster Anthony Brockway. Check for yourselves.
Vizet / Water is a selected Finch in Hungarian, edited (and for a large part translated) by the amazing Kinga Kovacs, published by Konkrét Könyvek of Budapest. Read here
The Argotist Online offers a transcription of Zoe Skoulding and Ian Davidson interview with Peter Finch carried out at Theatre Gwynedd, Bangor, in January, 2006. Here
Public poetry - Peter Finch's work has been incorporated into two public structures in Cardiff. Across the entrance, glass frontage, foyer and main corridor of BT's Internet Data Centre in Cardiff Bay is an extensive extract from Finch's post-modern interpretation of the work, life and influence of Wales' greatest twentieth century poet, R S Thomas. The BT IDC is situated in the west Bay, on the Ferry Road peninsular. To the east, running across the top of the re-claimed Lamby Way refuse dump, is a Finch commission which recycles itself as it goes. The structure is visible from the road alongside the Rumney River. He is currently working on two new public works. One to be situated outside the new John Lewis store as part of St David's 2 in the centre of Cardiff. The second fronts the new South Wales Police HQ being built in Cardiff Bay. More details to follow.
Biography - in one page here's a handy Peter Finch biography. Where is Peter Finch appearing next?
Flickr - Peter Finch's photostream is here
Slope. Visit also the Welsh issue of Slope, the on-line US magazine. Finch's guest edited edition includes everyone from Dannie Abse to Childe Roland. Find out what's really being written in Wales today.
Bob Cobbing 1920-2002 - A Tribute.But check the rest of the Peter Finch Archive before you go.
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