SIGNED EDITION
 
"Do the little things that you have heard and seen me do." This simple instruction, reputedly spoken by St David on his death-bed on 1 March 589, is well known and often quoted in Wales. In many ways this first collection of poems for young people by Connor Allen, the Children's Laureate of Wales (2021-2023) reflects this admirable sentiment, highlighting as it does issues of the environment, climate change and our respect for all cultures.
 
Poems such as 'The Keys to the Future' and 'In These Times' give pause for thought and point the young reader directly to 21st-century issues which will impact on lives young and old. The title of the anthology, Miracles, and the poem of the same name which ends the collection, echo this theme, and puts into mind that delightful short story by Paul Gallico, 'The Small Miracle' (1951). There, the young Italian war orphan, refused access to take his sick donkey to the crypt of St Francis, takes his case to the highest authority - the Pope. Here Connor invokes the readers' initiatives to tackle new things - 'to demystify poetry' - to find their own voices, and become poets, who in their own words and actions, might even change the minds of those higher authorities - the policy makers
 
About the Author
Connor Allen is a multidisciplinary artist and the Children’s Laureate of Wales (2021-2023). He has written for BBC Wales, BBC Radio 4, Sherman Theatre, Literature Wales, Dirty Protest and others, and is a member of the BBC Wales Welsh Voices and The Welsh Royal Court writing groups. His work is heavily inspired by elements of his own life including grief, love, masculinity, identity and ethnicity. An actor graduate of Trinity Saint David, he wrote and performed in his acclaimed debut show The Making of a Monster at the Wales Millennium Centre in 2022 (playtext published by Aurora Metro Books). In 2021, he won the Rising Star Wales Award, and was a Jerwood Live Work Fund recipient. He is Associate Artist of his hometown theatre The Riverfront in Newport.