ONE of Wales’s top writers will be special guest at The Cellar Bards this month.

Menna Elfyn is probably the best-known contemporary Welsh language poet internationally, and is certainly the most translated Welsh poet.

She’ll be reading in Welsh and English from her latest work on Friday, May 25, at the Cellar Bar, in Cardigan. Doors and the bar open at 7.45pm, the event starts at 8pm. Entry is £3 and open mic spots are available.

Menna Elfyn is an award-winning poet and playwright. She has published 14 collections of poetry, children’s novels, libretti for UK and US composers, plays for radio and television.

Merch Perygl (Danger’s Daughter), was published by Gomer Press in 2011, and her bilingual volume Murmur (Bloodaxe Books) in autumn 2012 was selected as Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation.

Her work has been translated into 18 languages, including Arabic, Greek, Italian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Portuguese and Spanish.

In October 2017, Bloodaxe published a new bilingual collection of her poetry - Bondo, and a literary memoir in Welsh, Cennad (Messager) was published by Barddas in March 2018.

Bondo has at its heart a sequence of poems in response to the mining disaster at Aberfan. The collections also ranges to Mexico, the Maldives, Greenland, India and the Balkans.

The importance of keeping languages alive, Welsh included, is a strong theme in this collection, as is the power and beauty of memory. Bondo is published in a dual language edition, with English translations by leading Welsh poets.

Menna is Professor of Poetry at University of Wales, Trinity Saint David and President of Wales PEN Cymru. She has been a columnist with the national newspaper of Wales since 1994.

Open mic spots are always available at The Cellar Bards, Cardigan’s only regular spoken word event. The Bards welcome writers of poetry, short stories, micro-fiction and novels (maximum five minutes each).

People who want to read can put their names down at the door on the night. Or go along to listen to the fabulous words of Menna Elfyn, plus a great variety of spoken word performances from the talented regulars. The event is hosted by poet Dave Urwin.