To one of my favourite towns on Friday: Rhyl on the Welsh coast (actually the favourite because I'm writing about it and it's just- well, brilliant) to hear one of my favourite writers, Glenda Beagan, launch her new collection The Great Master Of Ecstasy (from Seren). There's been a long wait for this book- worth it, we are hoping.
Glenda is one of those meticulous craftsmen whose poetry and prose never gets out the door before it's thoroughly burnished- and then brought back roughened around the edges and repolished. (In her introductory speech her editor Penny Thomas will make the point that this is her first collection for ten years - and she still needed two extensions to her deadline. WTG Glenda. No apologies necessary.)
Outside, as an audience gathers, Rhyl turns on its coloured lights and their glitter is kind to all the town's daytime faults and flatters the Promenade into that magical place from everyone's childhood. We're early- I'm impatient to hear my friend read, after all, so David and I walk the perimeter of the deserted Marine Lake. The quiet is a positive thing, anticipatory. Even the boats tethered along the Foryd Harbour are making less fuss about wind and water.
As Glenda's a self-effacing almost reluctant performer, I worry for her - but once she stops the hard part of explaining why and how and reads, the atmosphere in the room becomes charged. Here is someone that many people outside Wales will never have heard of who has had a long break in her writing career dealing I know with challenging stuff thrown at her by life. But no one there on Friday evening in Rhyl's small gallery could be left in any doubt by the time she sits down. She always was and still is The Real Thing.
