Cardiff-born writer, artist and musician Laura Wainwright grew up in Newport where she still lives. She has a PhD in English literature from Cardiff University where her thesis focused on Anglophone Welsh Literature, later published as ‘New Territories in Modernism: Anglophone Welsh Writing, 1930-1949’ by the University of Wales Press. The Storm’s Flora is her first full-length debut collection following the publication of the poetry pamphlets Air and Armour (Green Bottle Press, 2021) and Coedcernyw: among other things (Clutag Press, 2023). Thrall: Poems and Art, a collaboration with Robert Minhinnick featuring her poetry and artwork, was published in 2025 by Seventh Quarry Press.

The cover art by the Javanese-born Dutch painter, sculptor and graphic artist, Reijer Stolk (1896-1945) tells us something about this debut collection. The artichoke is a symbol of hope in many cultures. Stemming from its tender ‘heart’ which is protected by tough outer leaves, it represents resilience, inner beauty and the overcoming of hardship. These themes dovetail with Wainwright’s poems which not only display their own inner beauty but also explore resilience in the natural world told through the landscape, language and history of her native Wales.

A number of poems, such as ‘Meadowsweet Gin,’ ‘The Lavender Bed,’ ‘Song of the Stinking Iris,’ ‘Anemone Nemorosa’ and ‘Teasels’ focus on specific plants for their starting points. These move beyond mere description as Wainwright enriches our experience with her individual voice. 

Several poems are prefaced by quotations or dedicated to other writers. A good number were commissioned by visual artists, featured in art exhibitions or arose out of specific collaborations with other visual artists. ‘River Roses’ and ‘Uskmouth Orchids’ were written for Sustainable Wales, a community-driven charity that seeks to find practical solutions to address the unsustainable way we live in order to enhance well-being and environmental security for the long-term.

Music is never far from her poems. ‘The Luthier’ takes place at the graveside of a person who made repairs to stringed instruments. At the funeral, the open grave into which the coffin is lowered becomes ‘‘a sound-hole in the earth’’ -

 

     From down there came the frost’s harmonics -

     three silverish strings – singing:

     lully,lulla, lullay,

     sleep well my luthier,

     you made such music yet didn’t play.

 

A poem about a mulberry tree is written in the guise of a folk song. Another called ‘Crow’ which is dedicated to folk musician Charlotte Greig (1954-2014) echoes her songs ‘Crows’, ‘Trees’ and ‘Go from my Window’. A poem about Mary Grant who, with her young son Charles, was bayoneted to death by British soldiers during political riots in Newport in 1868, is styled as a ballad. A musical ear is at work in many of  her poems. You can hear it in the rhythm, in the sound of the language and the choice of words employed. 

The poems I enjoyed the most were the ones where Wainwright draws inspiration from inanimate objects such as scythes, swarf-hooks, billhooks and shears. Her vivid treatment of the subject matter, often developing into unexpected storylines, are a real pleasure to read.

Returning to the natural world, I will leave you with the final stanza of ‘Beechmast at Coed Melyn’:

 

     As usual I gather a few – squeeze the husks

     in my fist hard enough to know

     our shared strength, a fact of this false autumn,

     the barbed sepals startling my skin.

     When inside all is thrift-shop jewellery-box soft -

     as a doe’s ear might be

     or as a robin’s auburn down once was -

     as it sifted seed from my hand.

 

Notes at the end give helpful information with English translations of Welsh words and phrases and links to other websites where appropriate.

 

Laura Wainwright, The Storm’s Flora, Seren, £10.99