SPECIAL guest at The Cellar Bards’ September event will be award-winning poet Sophie McKeand, who is the current Young People’s Laureate of Wales.

She’ll be reading from her debut poetry collection ‘Rebel Sun’, on Friday, September 29, in the Cellar Bar, Quay Street, Cardigan. Doors and the bar open at 7.30pm, the event starts at 8pm. Entry is £3.

Sophie has appeared regularly on BBC Radio Wales and is listed by the Institute for Welsh Affairs as one of 30 people who will be ‘shaping the Welsh agenda’ over the next 30 years.

She is a Literature Wales bursary recipient for 2017 and her poetry is widely published including in Poetry Wales, Dark Mountain, The Lonely Crowd and Tears in the Fence. She performs regularly across the UK and this year was at Hay, Festival No6, as well as Port Eliot and The Good Life festivals on the Caught by the River stage.

She has also performed internationally – in Ireland, and at the Kolkata Literature Festival in India as part of the British Council Wales India/Wales exchange.

Rebel Sun (Parthian Books) is her first full-length poetry collection. It speaks of socialism and starlings, and sings the praise of the Rebel Sun who recreates the world every day so that at any time we can cast off the past and do the same.

These poems dream of the fluidity of politics, of time and place, map mountain and mind. They talk of knitting together people and communities. But after this comes the slow unravelling – the compulsion to let go, transform and shape-shift; slowly unwind roots from the earth; grow fin and feather; know water and sky.

The Cellar Bards’ September event will be compered by poet Dave Urwin. Open mic spots are always available at The Cellar Bards for writers of poetry, short stories, micro-fiction and novels (max five minutes each).

People who want to read should put their names down at the door on the night. Or go along to listen to Sophie McKeand, plus a great variety of spoken word performances from the talented regulars.