Cardigan’s Cellar Bards returns from a winter break with guest poet Ron Geaves kicking off an exciting 2026 programme at the Cellar.

Ron travels to the Quay Street venue on Friday, 13 February (7.30pm) for the launch of his new poetry collection, Glimpses, published by UniVerse. He will also read from a soon to be published two volume memoir of his extensive travels in the Middle East.

He started writing poetry during the 1980s inspired by the Celtic landscape of West Penwith, Cornwall. He joined the Leeds Poetry Group while studying there in the late 80’s and early 1990s, where he was the support act to both Craig Raine and John Cooper Clarke, before academic writing took over with the publication of over 20 biographies, histories of migration and books on religion.

In 2013 Ron’s biography of Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932), the Liverpool traveller, lawyer, and trade unionist, brought him major media coverage and generated documentaries after its publication in 2010.

In 2021, with Yahya Birt, he published My Inmost Heart: The Collected Poems of Abdullah Quilliam, from Manchester’s Beacon Press.

But the muse of poetry flourished once again in Wales, with Ron’s first poetry collection, Rumi Weeds by Beacon, in 2010, when he was asked to read at Bradford Literature Festival in a session “Modern Mystical Poets” alongside Ben Okri.

Following Ron’s performance there will be plenty of open mic slots for anyone who wants to share words with the audience, and this is the final opportunity to read entries for Cellar Bard’s first anthology, Open Heart Microphone, to be published in April.

Poetry, rap, flash fiction, story-telling, episodes of longer fiction and non-fiction are all accepted, even the occasional original song. Sign up on the door with MC Karen Gemma Brewer.

Entry is £5 on the night and includes a free raffle.