Thrilled to see Julia Bell's Hymnal on WAR's ' Best Poetry Collections of 2023 ' list! Late in the 1960s, before Bell was born, her father and mother visited Aberaeron, a small fishing town on the west coast of Wales. Here, her father heard a voice – which he knew to be God – directing him to minister to the Welsh. Six months after she was born in the early 1970s, they moved to Aberaeron where he took up his first curateship. Over the next eighteen years they would move to various parishes within a forty mile radius: first to Llangeler a predominantly Welsh-speaking parish in the Teifi valley, then back to Aberaeron where Bell’s father became vicar, and then to a larger and more Evangelical church in Aberystwyth. This unique memoir in verse offers a series of snapshots about religion and sexuality. In verse because it’s how Bell remembers: snapshots in words strung along a line, which somehow constitute a life. Snapshots of another time from now, but from a time whic
It was lovely to see Hymnal , Julia Bell's memoir in verse selected as a 2023 Highlight by the Welsh Books Council in their latest newsletter . 'Moving, tender writing with a haunting evocation of place and time.' – Hannah Lowe 'Bell pulls us deep into her memory, where depth charges lie planted which are then detonated to great effect. We are there, in her moment, and though her eye is unwavering and her wit biting, it is never at the cost of empathy... The claustrophobia is gothic and palpable, but never overplayed – testament to Julia Bell’s finesse as a writer, but also her frankly awesome powers of forgiveness.' – Mike Parker, Planet Magazine ' Hymnal is vivid, intense and freeing. There is so much to release; so much deep emotional confusion is explored. Her poems remind me of Sharon Olds’ The Father and Pascale Petit’s The Zoo Father, woven through with threads of trauma and self-discovery ... This work bursts forth in relentless, rich images. It’s a re