About Me

Taz Rahman was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Jerwood Poetry Prize 2024. His Lauel Prize 2024 longlisted first poetry collection East of the Sun, West of the Moon was published in February 2024 by leading Welsh publisher Seren Books. He was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award in 2022.

 

He is the committee chair of the poetry magazine Poetry Wales, serves as an editor for the climate emergency themed literary magazine Modron and peer-reviews poetry proposals for Wasafiri magazine and the Books Council of Wales. He founded Wales' first Youtube poetry channel Just Another Poet in 2019 to widen access to poets and has been part of the Seren Books board of directors since July 2024. He also serves as a critical friend on diversity and inclusion to the Books Council of Wales.

 

Taz Rahman has lived in Cardiff for 32 years and started writing poetry in 2019. His writer development journey has included being selected for the prestigious Hay Festival 'Writers at Work' scheme in 2023, Literature Wales' 2021 'Representing Wales' annual writer development programme, being mentored by Poetry Wales editor Zoë Brigley and having been selected for programmes of masterclasses with Queen's Medal winner Gillian Clarke and Forward prize winner Caleb Femi.

Publications: In addition to his first full length poetry collection published by Seren Books in February 2024, his poems have been published in the following magazines: Poetry Wales, Interpreter's House, Bad Lilies, Propel Magazine, Anthropocene Poetry, Acropolis Journal, South Bank Poetry, Honest Ulsterman, Abridged Magazine, Planet - The Welsh Internationalist, Barddas, The Lonely Crowd, Atrium Poetry and Acropolis Journal, and in the following anthologies: ‘Gwrthryfel/Uprising’ An Anthology of Radical Poetry from Wales (Culture Matters, 2022), Free Verse - Poems for Richard Price (Seren Books, 2023) The Propel Anthology: 2022-2024 (Propel, 2024), Afonydd, Poems for Welsh Rivers (Arachne Press, 2025), Nature Matters, Vital Poems from the Global Majority (Faber & Faber, 2025).

Festivals: 2025 festivals - Abergavenny Writing Festival (5th April), Lyra Poetry Festival, Bristol (27th April), Aberystwyth Poetry Festival (6th - 8th June), Monty Litfest (7th June).

His 2024 appearances were in Southampton Litfest 2024 by Artful Scribe (9th March), Cheltenham Poetry Festival (25th April), Aberystwyth Poetry Festival (4th-5th May), Hay Festival (1st June), Penarth Literary Festival (23rd June) and Neath Literary Festival (19th October). In 2023 he appeared at the Hay Festival, These3Streams Llantwit Major Festival and at the Harvest Party in St. Davids, Pembrokeshire, and in 2022 he read at the Seren Cardiff Poetry Festival.

Literary Awards & Bursaries: He had been selected to be part of the Hay Festival 'Writers at Work' 2023, shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2022 for his poem 'Ramadan', a joint winner of the 2022 International Dylan Thomas Day poetry competition, and the 2021 Representing Wales writer development programme award by Literature Wales with mentorship from Poetry Wales editor Zoë Brigley. In 2020, he was selected as one of seven emerging poets by Literature Wales for a week-long poetry masterclass with Queen's Medal winning poet Gillian Clarke, and also by Writerz and Scribez for a six-week poetry mentorship with Forward Prize winner Caleb Femi.

Editorial: He is an editor of the climate emergency focused literary journal Modron alongside Zoë Brigley  and Kristian Evans. He has been serving as the chair of Poetry Wales magazine's Readers' Committee since September 2022. He is a poetry collection peer-reviewer for the Books Council of Wales and the Wasafiri magazine, and a regular reviewer for Poetry Wales and had recently read for the Acropolis Journal. 

 

Competition Judging: He was one of three judges for the inaugural Poetry Wales Pamphlet Competition 2021.

Biography: Taz Rahman has lived in Cardiff for the last thirty years. He spent his very early years in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and attended secondary school in Birmingham and university in Cardiff, UK.  He started writing poetry in 2019 and also writtes short fiction, essays, reviews and plays. 

Just Another Poet: He founded the acclaimed Youtube poetry promotion channel 'Just Another Poet', which had received Wales Books Council's New Audience Funding (2022/23/24) and had won a Literature Wales commission (2020).

Other Creative & Editorial Associations: He had served on the advisory board of the community arts promotion organisation Head4Arts. As a professional events photographer with an interest in photographic depiction of political protests in South Wales, he had been featured in exhibitions and published national and international periodicals, and his fine art portraiture has been featured in group exhibitions for 'Made in Roath' in Cardiff, and in West Bromwich. 

General Interests: His major interests include climate change and preservation of habitats, the language of trauma, jazz and early classical music, historical and contemporary art, south-east Wales waterways, enlightenment philosophy, history of the late antique period, culinary flavours, cats and river fowls. He had served as a volunteer listener for the Cardiff Samaritans for nine years and is passionate about supporting mental health awareness.   

Academic Education: He attended secondary school in Birmingham, West Midlands and subsequently pursued an undergraduate degree in philosophy at Cardiff University. He also has a master’s degree in social philosophy and ethics from the same institution, and had previously studied for another masters in religion in late antiquity.

Contact: https://tazrahman.blogspot.com/p/contact-me.html