Mike Jenkins (poet)

Mike Jenkins is a Welsh poet and fiction writer in English. He is also the father of the Plaid Cymru politician Bethan Sayed and of the journalist Ciaran Jenkins.

Early life and education

Born in Aberystwyth, Jenkins was educated there at what was then the University College of Wales.

A former winner of the Wales Book of the Year competition for Wanting to Belong, Jenkins is a former editor of Poetry Wales and a long-term co-editor of Red Poets. He taught English at Radyr Comprehensive School in Cardiff for nearly a decade and Penydre High School, Gurnos, Merthyr Tydfil, for some two decades before that. At the end of the 2008–2009 academic year, Jenkins took voluntary redundancy. He now writes full-time, capitalising on experiences gleaned from former pupils.
An extract from one of Jenkins' poems has been used as part of the public-realm regeneration scheme for Merthyr Tydfil town centre.
Jenkins has twice judged the International Welsh Poetry Competition, in 2009 and in 2019.
In 2011–12, he produced an Arts Council of Wales-funded touring exhibition and booklet titled Dim Gobaith Caneri, in collaboration with fellow Merthyr Tydfil resident, the painter Gustavius Payne, using Welsh language idioms, through the medium of English, to comment on current world affairs, including the banking crisis and a local open-cast mine. He continues to live in Merthyr Tydfil, and has done so for over 30 years.
His 2013 collection, Barkin!, published by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, was shortlisted for 2014's Wales Book of the Year Award.