Ben Rhys Palmer is a poet, translator and editor. He was born in Cardiff, Wales, and currently lives in Guadalajara, Mexico. In 2022 he won 1st prize in the Verve Poetry Competition. His poetry has appeared in The London Magazine; Poetry Wales; New Welsh Review; Forklift, Ohio; Wales Arts Review; The Caterpillar; and Neon; and has been commended in the Kent & Sussex Poetry Prize, the Winchester Poetry Prize, the Interpreter’s House Poetry Competition, and the Welshpool Competition. He has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize twice.
Ben’s debut collection, Breakfast with the Scavengers, will be published by Parthian in October 2025 and can be pre-ordered here.
Ben has a BA in English Literature from Cardiff University and an MA in Creative Writing from Swansea University. He is fluent in Spanish and is an experienced Spanish-to-English translator. He currently works as a declaration writer for an immigration law firm specialising in assisting Latino immigrants in cases of abuse, labor exploitation and trafficking. Ben has also taught for The Poetry School.
Ben is a songwriter, composer and producer. His latest project is Owl Island, which blends and blurs the boundaries between ambient, electronica, post-rock, and vintage film soundtracks.
Praise for Ben’s Poetry
Caroline Bird (on Breakfast with the Scavengers)
Ben Rhys Palmer builds a world in every poem, allowing the reader to live inside it, entertained yet teetering on the precipice of disaster. These poems are romantic, apocalyptic, welcoming, terrifying, funny and heart-breaking all at once.
Suzannah Evans (on Breakfast with the Scavengers)
Ben Rhys Palmer has an extraordinary gift for building tiny worlds that he allows us to visit through these poems. Populated with ostrich riders, axolotls and luchadores to name a few, each setting is exquisitely detailed and inventively drawn. There’s a rare, playful empathy for all humans and creatures and our interdependencies – the glorious weirdness of these often surreal settings only serves to enhance emotional resonance and connection.
Jonathan Edwards (on Breakfast with the Scavengers)
Ben Rhys Palmer is one of the most exciting poetry voices to emerge from Wales for many years. His writing combines a range of transatlantic influences, including James Tate, Charles Simic, Caroline Bird and David Wojahn, and the experience of living abroad, into a rich and individual voice. Here you will find witty and exuberantly imaginative visions of ostrich racing and robot gardeners, alongside beautifully crafted odes to Welsh pop culture heroes like John Cale and Adrian Street. Here, too, you will find tender, huge-hearted, important poems of family and loss, of romantic love and the joy of pets, of empathetic connection to strangers and ancestors. It takes a special writer to build such a varied and successful body of work, and the publication of this collection is an event to be celebrated in writing from Wales.
Jonathan Edwards (on ‘Apunda’)
What I love about this poem is its understanding – rare in poetry – that tenderness and comedy complement each other beautifully… I love this writing for its celebration of the imaginative power of poetry, and for its brilliant management of tone.
Jonathan Edwards (on ‘Bellyache Jake’)
Deeply funny, deeply memorable and working towards a great ending, this is steeped in some of the best American surrealist writing of recent years, and is a great joy.
Prizes, Awards and Commendations
2025. The Bridport Prize (Shortlisted)
2025. Ironbridge Poetry Competition (Shortlisted)
2023. The Bridport Prize (Shortlisted)
2023. Kent & Sussex Open Poetry Competition (4th Prize)
2022. Verve Poetry Competition (1st Prize)
2022. Winchester Poetry Prize (Commended)
2022. Fish Publishing Poetry Prize (Longlisted)
2020. Welshpool Poetry Prize (Commended)
2016. The Interpreter’s House Poetry Competition (Commended)
Published Writings
‘Synthpop’, ‘Tardigrade’, and ‘Fish Gods’ (translated into Spanish by Iván Soto Camba) in Luvina, 2025.
‘Adrian Street Meets GIs, Brynmawr, 1943’ in Poetry Wales, Winter 2023.
‘Apunda’ in the Kent & Sussex Open Poetry Competition Folio, 2023.
‘Eden the Robot Gardener’ in The Verve Anthology of Beginnings, edited by Caroline Bird, 2022.
‘Yeti’ in the Winchester Poetry Prize Anthology, selected by Jo Bell, 2022.
‘Visitors’ in Poetry Wales, 2020.
‘The Exotic Adrian Street’, ‘Adrian Street and His Father at Benyon’s Colliery’ in Under the Radar, 2020.
‘The Usual’, ‘Synthpop’ in The London Magazine, 2020.
‘The Sloth’ in The Caterpillar, 2019.
‘Lucha Libre’, ‘La Dany’, ‘Iguanas at Tulum’ in The London Magazine, 2019.
‘Soap’, ‘First Date’, ‘The Game’ in Neon, 2017.
‘Breakfast with the Scavengers’ in Forklift, Ohio, 2017.
‘Bellyache Jake’ in The Interpreter’s House, 2016.
‘Joseph Cornell’s Untitled’, ‘The Entertainers’ in New Welsh Review, 2014.
‘Of Steelworks and Seaweed’ in Wales Arts Review, 2014.
Key Poetry Readings
2023. Launch of Poetry Wales 59.2, Online event.
2023. Kent & Sussex Open Poetry Prize Event, Tunbridge Wells, UK.
2022. Winchester Poetry Prizegiving at the Winchester Poetry Festival, Winchester, UK.
2022. Headlining spot at The Verve Poetry Festival Competition Event, Birmingham, UK.
2020. Launch of Poetry Wales 56.1, Online event.
2020. A night of poetry and music to collect funds for flood victims in Oaxaca. Guadalajara, Mexico.
2018. Seren Books Poetry Night, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales.
Key Translations
Pájaros de Invernadero by Mila Tesla (Fernanda Oyarvide), work in progress, 2023.
Anarene by Mikel Bastida,published by Editorial RM (ES), 2022.
Matter by Aleix Plademunt, published by Ca l’Isidret/Spector Books (ES/DE), 2022.
Hinterlands by Aleix Plademunt, published by Ca l’Isidret (ES), 2021.
Various publications by the University of Alicante (ES) 2019-2021.
PlayGround magazine (ES), 2016-2017.
Volata magazine (ES), 2014-2019.
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