Category Archives: Literary Magazine

Can Peter Finch really be so successful as a poet and editor, and so nice at the same time? In this episodic autobiography, Finch has kind words for everyone he has ever met, for every book he has ever read, performance he has seen, those he has done business with and worked for, along with the charlatans, pretenders and would-bes the poetry world knows all too well. 

The usual collective name is ‘a bitch of poets’ but Finch rises above that. Having immersed himself in concrete and sound poetry, as both cultural historian and creator, there is little that can weird him out, and he seems to have the patience of a saint when it comes to dealing with hangers on, bumbling amateurs, egotists and the textually or socially deranged. Instead, he prefers to encourage and offer examples and a context for it all, in the hope that things will grow, be that personally, poetically, creatively or editorially.

If ley lines existed for the poetry world, then Peter Finch would be the Alfred Watkins we need. Whilst bigging-up and documenting publishing and poetic activities in Wales, particularly Cardiff, Finch clearly documents how local politics, power structures, writerly rebellions, outsiders and arts quangos overlay and interact with creativity and artistic activities, and also reach out to the world outside Wales.

These are only hinted it, sketched quickly, before Finch returns home to Wales. It’s a breath of fresh air, even as someone born and bred in London, to find a new and engaging point-of-view on offer, a world where purveyors of Anglo-Welsh and Welsh poetries argue and debate, and the usual academic and big name authorial suspects are missing. For Wales has its own hierarchies, its own countercultures, its own magazines, poetry slams, upstairs rooms in pubs, lecture halls, bookshops and bookfairs, open mic events, its own groups of poets jostling for attention. Make that lots of its own groups.

Somehow Peter Finch seems to be or have been part of, if not central to, all of these groups. He knew and still knows everyone. He ran Oriel Bookshop for years, flogging every poetry magazine known to mankind; performed as part of Cabaret 246 with [Chris]Topher Mills (who my mother still remembers insulting her down the phone because he thought he was talking to me, the editor of Stride, who had carelessly misspelt a word in his poem); was Chief Executive of the Welsh Academy; tutored at Tŷ Newydd, the Welsh Arvon; and helped initiate the Welsh Poet Laureate. And just in case you’d forgotten, he also wrote, indeed still writes, his own brilliant books of poetry and alternative guides to the ‘Real Cardiff’ and elsewhere.

He’s also affable, enjoys a drink and a chat, remembers people’s names and backgrounds and is one of the world’s great encouragers and facilitators. Finch seems to regard everything as creative, from organising a reading (there’s a How to Organise… chapter here) or running a magazine or bookshop to writing in all its many possible forms, via avant-garde performances and alcohol-fuelled debating sessions in dodgy pub back rooms.

Although I miss the usual sideswipes and derogatory remarks that usually punctuate the divided worlds of creative writing, Finch is an example of an enthusiastic and catholic form of ambassador. I don’t believe for one moment he likes all the work of those he shakes hands with and has worked alongside, but he knows it is a given, part of the literary business he has chosen to engage with and now write about. After all, those givens may be something to resist and write against as much as anything else. We can’t all be Pam Ayres or Bob Cobbing, most of us reside somewhere in between. Or in Finch’s case, everywhere. Omniscient.

Rupert Loydell 1^st January 2026