Those curious about the state of Welsh writing could hope for little better introduction than last night's Oxfam Readathon, which brought an extraordinary cross-section of literary talent straight to the Milgi yurt.
Showcasing a hotchpotch of writing from highbrow to lowbrow, experimental and musical, published and unpublished, good and occasionally bad, over three-and-a-half hours we were treated to a who's who of Welsh writers that included Rachel Trezise, Peter Finch, John Williams, Deborah Kay Davies, Jon Gower, Rhys Thomas and more.
The standout performance of the evening came from Cardiff writer and Academi chief executive Peter Finch. A big, imposing Welshman dressed all in black, he was forced to hunch in the low-ceilinged yurt, like an ogre in a doll's house. The poems he chose were rancorous, unyielding and immensely powerful, and not so much read as spat at the audience.
Rachel Trezise's work also came alive in her performance. Sixteen Shades Of Crazy, her latest novel about a group of twenty and thirty-somethings living in Aberalaw, has a cinematic quality to it that blossomed into life in the ebb and flow of her Rhondda dialect. She raised a few laughs from the crowd of listeners who made it to the end of the evening to watch her speak.
There were plenty more authors too. Jo Carnegie read from her Churchminster series of 'bonkbuster' books. Sule Rimi, a talented local actor and MC, reeled off a couple of verses from memory, and Patrick Jones gave a performance of the Christian-baiting polemical poem that caused Waterstones to cancel his reading last year.
It is a rare occasion that such a breadth of talent is assembled in one room, and so this was quite a coup for Oxfam, and a fitting tribute to the diversity of the Welsh voice.
