” Tony Curtis, one of Wales’s leading poets, has the knack of contracting the earthbound to the sublime.” – Dannie Abse.
After forty-two years working in education, Tony Curtis is retired and continues to write and publish poetry, fiction and art criticism. His current research interests concern his family and the Great War, as well as their mining and farming activities in Pembrokeshire. He remains an active poetry and fiction performer as well as a lecturer and public speaker. He has recently also researched and written a book set in wartime Paris. Seren will publish this as the novel Darkness in the City of Light in October 2021. Also, in the summer of 2021 Seren will publish the anthology Where the Birds Sing Our Names to raise funds for the Ty Hafan children’s’ hospice in south Wales.
Bibliography
Album Christopher Davies, 1974
Three Young Anglo Welsh Poets (with Duncan Bush and Nigel Jenkins) Welsh Arts Council, 1974
Out of the Dark Wood: prose, poems and short stories Edge Press, 1977
Carnival a pamphlet Alun Books, 1978
Preparations: poems 1974-1979 Gomer Press, 1980
The Art of Seamus Heaney (editor and introduction) Poetry Wales Press, 1982
The Deerslayers a pamphlet Cwm Nedd Press, 1982
Letting Go Poetry Wales Press, 1983
Dannie Abse (Writers of Wales series) University of Wales Press/Welsh Arts Council, 1985
Poems, Selected and New Story Line Press (US), 1986
Selected Poems 1970-1985 Poetry Wales Press, 1986
Wales: The Imagined Nation Poetry Wales Press, 1986
The Last Candles Seren, 1989
The Poetry of Pembrokeshire (editor) Seren, 1989
The Poetry of Snowdonia (editor) Seren, 1989
How to Study Modern Poetry Macmillan, 1990
Love from Wales (editor with Sian James) Seren, 1991
Taken for Pearls: new poems Seren, 1993
War Voices Seren, 1995
How Poets Work (editor) Seren, 1996
Coal: an anthology of mining (editor) Seren, 1997
Welsh Painters Talking Seren, 1997
The Arches (collages by Jon Digby) Seren, 1998
Assemblea di Poety edited, MobyDick, ed. Italy, 1999
Dal Confine : Selected Poems in Italian MobyDick, Italy, 2000
Welsh Artists Talking Seren, 2000
Heaven’s Gate Seren, 2001
Considering Cassandra : a selection of poems and a story Gwasg Garreg Gwalch, 2003
Related Twilights: Josef Herman, Notes from an Artist’s Diary (editor) Seren, 2004
Last Candles: Selected Poems trans.Armenia, Zangat-97,2006
Crossing Over Seren, 2007
After the First Death; an anthology of Wales and War in the C20th edited Seren, 2007
Wales and War: Critical Essays on Literature and Art edited. Seren, 2007
The Meaning of Apricot Sponge: Selected Writings of John Tripp ed. Parthian Books, 2010
Real South Pembrokeshire Seren Books 2011
Eight Pegs – a pamphlet Mulfran Press 2011
Alchemy Dwr/ The Alchemy of Water – bi-lingual poems with Graham Davies Gomer Press 2013
My Life with Dylan Thomas Mulfran Press, 2014
Poems New & Selected: From the Fortunate Isles Seren October 2016
Some Kind of Immortality : Selected Stories Cinnamon Press – May 2017
Where the Birds Sing Our Names – a charity anthology for Ty Hafen children’s Hospice Seren 2021
Darkness in the City of Light – a novel Seren 2021
Prizes and awards
1972 Eric Gregory Award
1974 Arts Council of Wales Young Writers Prize
1984 National Poetry Competition (first prize – ‘The Death of Richard Beattie-Seaman in the Belgian Grand Prix, 1939’)
1993 Dylan Thomas Award
1997 Cholmondeley Award
2001 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
2004 D.Litt. awarded, University of Glamorgan
Darkness in the city of Light is short-listed for the Society of Authors Paul Torday Prize, 2023
Related Links
Tony’s Guardian workshop on the Villanelle