POETRY 1900-2000

EDITOR MEIC STEPHENS

PARTISAN LIBRARY OF CONTENTS

Preface by Dafydd Elis-Thomas i Editor's Note , . •. • . ,v

W. H.DAVIES 187M940 . ". •. 1 The Kingfisher Leisure Days that have Been A Great Time The Collier's Wife The Inquest The Villain The Poet A Woman's History Let Us Lie Close

HUW MENAI 1888-1961 11 The Old Peasant in the Billiard Saloon Cwm Farm near Capel Curig

A. G. PRYS-JONES 1888-1987 13 A Ballad of Glyn Dwr's Rising , Salt Marshes Spring comes to Quite so ...-.,•.- Elevated Business as Usual

XI WYN GRIFFITH 1890-1977 , 18 If there be time Silver Jubilee 1939

DAVID JONES 1895-1974 21 In Parenthesis (extract) 'This Dai adjusts his slipping shoulder-straps...' The Tutelar of the Place (extract) 'Now sleep on, little children...' The Sleeping Lord (extract) 'Tawny-black sky-scurries...'

EILUNED LEWIS 1900-1979 37 The Birthright The Bride Chest Ships' Sirens

GWYN WILLIAMS 1904-1990 41 Inns of Love : for D. Belly Dancer Wild Night at Treweithan Lame Fox Saint Ursula of Easter Poem ' Drawing a Line

IDRIS DAVIES 1905-1953 50 Gwalia Deserta (extracts) II 'My fathers in the mining valleys' IV 'O timbers from Norway and muscles from Wales'

xn VIII 'Do you remember 1926? That summer of...' •'. XII 'There's a concert in the village to buy us...' XV 'O what can you give me?' XXIV 'Because I was sceptical in our Sunday School' ' ' XXVI 'The village of Fochriw grurits among the...' XXXI 'Consider famous men, Dai bach, consider...' XXXIV 'When we walked to , in the...' The Angry Summer (extracts) . 1 'Now it is May among the mountains' 7 'Mrs Evans fach, you want butter again' 15 'In the square brown chapel below the hill' 24 'Cow-parsley and hawthorn blossom' 31 'Let's go to Barry Island, Maggie fach' 37 'Send out your homing pigeons, Dai' , 43 'O rain of July pouring down from the heavens' Tonypandy (extract) III 'The dusk deepens into the autumn night' Capel Calvin "; A Carol for the Coalfield A Star in the East Land of My Mothers

GLYN JONES 1905-1995 69 Esyllt ferch Brychan Scene Easter Merthyr Cwmcelyn Morning Bindweed

xm Goodbye, what were you? The Common Path The Meaning of Fuchsias

VERNON -WAT-KINS 1906-1967 . 85 Griefs of the Sea Portrait of a Friend Music of Colours: White Blossom Returning to Goleufryn Taliesin in Gower The Mare Peace in the Welsh Hills Great Nights Returning i Waterfalls Ode to Fidelities

MARGIAD EVANS 1909-1958 105 The Nightingale A Lark Sonnet To my Sister Sian

LYNETTE ROBERTS 1909-1995 109 Poem from Llanybri Lamentation Earthbound Moorhen The Seasons Gods with Stainless Ears (extract) II 'We must upprise O my people. Though...'

xiv JEAN EARLE 1909-2002 121 Walking Home Visiting Light Stillborn Jugged Hare

TOM EARLEY 1911-1998 128 Tiddlers Rebel's Progress

BRENDA CHAMBERLAIN 1912-1971 131 To Dafydd Coed mourning his mountain-broken dog You, who in April laughed Talysarn Islandman Dead Ponies

R. S. THOMAS 1913-2000 135 A Peasant the Welsh Hill Country Cynddylan on a Tractor Welsh History Welsh Landscape Evans A Blackbird Singing Farm Wife Those Others Looking at Sheep The Moor In Church

xv Reservoirs Kneeling Via Negativa The Bright Field The Other The White Tiger A Marriage

DYLAN THOMAS 1914-1953 152 The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Especially when the October wind This bread I break • And death shall have no dominion After the funeral A Refusal to Mourn the Death, By Fire, of a Child in Poem in October The Hunchback in the Park Do not go gentle into that good night - ' .-'' In my Craft or Sullen Art Ceremony After a Fire Raid Fern Hill

ALUN LEWIS 1915-1944 173 Raiders' Dawn All Day it has Rained ; , The Sentry

The Mountain over Aberdare ; Goodbye . ..•••••; On Embarkation (extract) ,: II 'Before he sails a man may go on leave' - ;

xvi Song The Mahratta Ghats In Hospital: Poona (extract) I 'Last night I did not fight for sleep'

KEIDRYCH RHYS 1915-1987 186 The Prodigal Speaks Interlude Tragic Guilt Youth

ROLAND MATHIAS 1915-2007 191 Craswall The Flooded Valley A Last Respect Departure in Middle Age Absalom in the Tree Indictment They have not survived Porth Cwyfan Burning Brambles Brechfa Chapel

EMYR HUMPHREYS 1919- 207 Ancestor Worship . A Roman Dream Gwr y Rhos A Democratic Vista ,; - From Father to Son J ;K < Twenty-four, Pairs of Socks

xvn 1920-1994 217 Local Boy Makes Good Valley Winter Romantic Peeps at Remote Peoples The Boomerang in the Parlour Thanks in Winter The Stone Face Israel Synopsis of the Great Welsh Novel A Crown for Branwen

JOHN STUART WILLIAMS 1920-2001 230 Gwynt Traed y Meirw Overkill Last Words

T. H. JONES 1921-1965 234 Poem for Madeleine Difference Gorse Idyll Rhiannon Land of my Fathers A Confusion of Bright Women Back? Girl Reading John Donne Builth Wells

ROBERT MORGAN 1921-1994 244

Village : Blood Donor

xvm PETER HELLINGS 1921-1994 247 Academic Festival Motley Ralph's

LESLIE NORRIS 1921-2006 253 Autumn Elegy Early Frost The Ballad of Billy Rose Water Elegy for David Beynon Hudson's Geese A Sea in the Desert Borders Peaches His Father, Singing

RUTH BIDGOOD 1922- 275 Little of Distinction Burial Path All; Souls' Church in the Rain Hawthorn at Digiff Olchon Valley Merthyr Clydawg Question

JOHN ORMOND 1923-1990 285 At his Father's Grave ' My Grandfather and his Apple-Tree

xix Cathedral Builders Definition of a Waterfall In September Ancient Monuments Salmon The Gift Tuscan Cypresses

DANNIE ABSE 1923- 304 Epithalamion Letter to Alex Comfort The Game Return to The French Master A Night Out Not Adlestrop In Llandough Hospital Last Words A Letter from Ogmore-by-Sea •

ALISON BIELSKI 1925- 319 token border country eagles

RAYMOND GARLICK 1926- 323 Consider Kyffin Ancestors ,,-.''

Saunders Lewis at Newtown ; .•... Capitals ... . , , ,

xx Agincourt Matters Arising Anthem for Doomed Youth Notes for an Autobiography (extract) 4 'Looking at life's untidy plan'

MERCER SIMPSON 1926-2007 -339 Exodus from Blaenavon Henry Vaughan Visits his Grandfather at Tretower

JOHN TRIPP 1927-1986 • ' - 342 Diesel to Yesterday Soliloquy for Compatriots Separation On my Fortieth Birthday Tomcat Walnut Tree Forge Connection in Bridgend

JOSEPH P. CLANCY 1928- 353 Love's Language Anniversary A Cywydd for Kate A Cywydd for Christmas

DOUGLAS PHILLIPS 1929-2002 361 To Sir Lewis Morris

BRIAN MORRIS 1930-2001 . 364 Upon the Priorie Grove, His Usuall Retyrement

xxi At Non's Well At Tre'r Ceiri Tryfan In Cardigan Market

TONY CONRAN 1931- 371 An,Invocation of Angels , For the Marriage of Heulwen Evans The Bombing of Guernica , , Silver Spoon Elegy for the Welsh Dead, in the Falkland Islands, 1982 A Square of Grey Slate Castles like Slang

HERBERT WILLIAMS 1932- 391 Nothing to Report The Old Tongue A Celebration Epitaph The Aliens Depopulation Countdown to the Gulf Funeral Oration

DANIEL HUWS 1932- 401 From an Old Songbook Indelicate The Ornithologist's Friend Goodbye to Tudor The House of Self-destruction

xxn BRYAN ASPDEN 1933-1999 404 Nant Honddu Which we are Erw Fawr Vin Audenaire

BRYN GRIFFITHS 1933- 409 Talley Abbey The Master Dying at Pallau Starlings Holy Joe

STUART EVANS 1934-1994 416 Jardin Municipal Blue Carnations

JON DRESSEL 1934- 419 You, Benjamin Jones Hard Love and a Country Dai,'-Live -i The Shop Girl

SAM ADAMS 1934- 426 Martins' Nest Sliding Onion Sellers Hill Fort, Caerleon Missed Chances ' < . At the Spanish Steps

xxni SALLY ROBERTS JONES 1935- 433 A Small Tragedy Remembrance Day: Palm Sunday / Sul y Blodau Ann Griffiths Turning Away

PETER GRUFFYDD 1935- 441 Macsen Wledig to the Welsh Shepherd Woman with Child The Soldier's Flute (extract) 'When you wake a cornet drags a snagging path' ' Some Fathers

ANNE CLUYSENAAR 1936- 448 Vaughan Variations (extracts)

5 'The hillside's a fall of water' . , : 16 'After the first shock, days' . , . : 23 'Her heart-beat flows round them, in them, like...'

JOHN POWELL WARD 1937- 456 The Burglar ;. • On the Lake The Guards Winter • At the Pool The Irish Sea from St. Davids : . •' ' .. Hurry Up Please, It's Time .. • '••'••'

xxiv ALUN REES 1937- 466 Release John Lucifer! My Mother's Mother Taffy is a Welshman . The,Cabbages of Maidanek Kipling Revisited Ten Parlour Socialists

GILLIAN CLARKE 1937- 475 The Sundial Lunchtime Lecture Harvest at Mynachlog My'Box • Sheila na Gig at Kilpeck The Hare Translation RS Lament

JOHN IDRIS JONES 1938- 487 Green Country, Clwyd To loan Madog, Poet, Ancestor Llandaff Cathedral

MEIC STEPHENS 1938- • ;. , 492 Ponies, Twynyrodyn Hooters \ > , ; Elegy for Mrs Mordecai

GRAHAM ALLEN 1938- 498 Out of the Dark

xxv A Scholarship The Song she Brought

JOHN BARNIE 1941- 502 Notes from the Carboniferous A Hill Chapel About the Usk An Upturn in the Price of Oil At the Salt Hotel Facts The Otters

CHRIS TORRANCE 1941- 510 Maen Madoc , The Fox The House of Stone

JEREMY HOOKER 1941- 518 Beidog Curlew The Mason's Law ; Wind Blew Once Hill Country Rhythms Pwyll the Old God Variations on a theme by Waldo Williams (extract)

JOHN POOK1942- 527 English Lesson • ...'.. Anniversary In Chapel

xxvi Weekend at Home L'Art Poetique

ALAN PERRY 1942- 532 Proverbs and Sayings from the Roadside A Brief Encounter Live Wires Fires on the Common

CHRISTINE EVANS 1943- 537 Callers Summer in the Village Unseen Island The Fisherman Llyn Island Children

JOHN DAVIES 1944- 545 Dandelions The Bridge The Visitor's Book (extracts) I • ' 'Just where along the line did this voice start' II 'Cymmer Afan: wet pensioned streets fagged-out' VIII'To swerve from village chapel to a town's' IX 'The tv set, stirring itself, confides' Starting Point Reading the Country (extracts) VII The Weathercock VIII Barrenness XI The Old Language

xxvn GRAHAM THOMAS 1944- 553 Breakfasts A Frog At Ynysddu The One Place •

PAUL EVANS 1945-1991 558 The Manual for the Perfect Organisation of Tourneys (extract) Sweet Lucy Talking with Dewi •>

RICHARD POOLE 1945- 568 Falling Back on Kant . Words Before Midnight •. • f Evening on the Beach Extravagant Love The Cry Air: an Aria

DUNCAN BUSH 1946- : 577 Gwlad, Gwlad ,.-...• Summer, 1984 Brigitte Bardot in Grangetown , • , , v

Crocuses . ., - . : • The Song in our Heart 'Caroline': A County Life Rhubarb

TONY CURTIS 1946- -• ••-. 591 To my Father ;•-,-.. : \

xxvm Preparations Soup Ivy Taken for Pearls The Death of Richard Beattie-Seaman in the Belgian Grand Prix, 1939 Incident on a Hospital Train from Calcutta, 1944 Portrait of the Painter Hans Theo Richter and his Wife Giselda in Dresden, 1933 Heaven's Gate

PENNYANNE WINDSOR 1946- 602 Dancing Woman 1 like oranges Heroines

ANDREW MCNE1LLIE 1946- 607 Dark Horse Piss Plato's Aviary (extract) xii Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) Wish List In Defence of Poetry Gone for Good Glyn Dwr Sonnets (extract) > . < 'When young Owain went to Bod Alaw'

DOUGLAS HOUSTON 1947- 614 Tomorrow Never Knows 'Here's tae Us'

XXIX Dead Man's Shoes Day in, Day out W. H. Auden in Cwmbrwyno

DAVID HUGHES 1947- 621 Flowers Tidy Boy The Streets of Llandeilo

PAUL GROVES 1947- 626 Turvy-Topsy A Look around New York Magnum Opus The Big Adventure Boosening A High Room off Spitalgasse Lines for Georgia O'Keeffe The Cordless Handset

PETER FINCH 1947- 638 The Tao of Dining The Student House Blodeuwedd Translated . All I Need is Three Plums :. . . Llywelyn Goch ap Meurig Hen at Speed • Rnld Tomos God Moves in Mysterious Ways

GLENDA BEAGAN 1948- •• . . 645 Rhiannon ;

xxx Boudicca Melangell

ROBERT WALTON 1948- 650 Airing Cupboard A Woman of Sixty Changed her Name

NIGEL JENKINS 1949- 653 Snowdrops The Language of Love Wild Cherry Never Forget your Welsh An Execrably Tasteless Farewell to Viscount No >

STEVE GRIFFITHS 1949- 667 Crossing Lady Stanley, Here, 1868 The Mines in Sepia Tint Children in a Walled Garden Glyndwr Subdued

IFOR THOMAS 1949- 675 I told her I Loved her a Lot in Splott • ' v Bomber Uncle Dewi's Lump Hotel Rossiya: In Memoriam

SHEENAGH PUGH 1950- 681 What if this Road Captain Roberts Goes Looting Id's Hospit

xxxi Stonelight Envying Owen Beattie Graffiti Man The Tormented Censor Toast •• .:.

ROWAN WILLIAMS 1950 - 694 Our Lady of Vladimir - • , ; Advent Calendar Oystermouth Cemetery Penrhys Gethsemane i:;:: - Tolstoy at Astapovo •-.'-. •::'.•-,' :. •••; •••..-

HILARY LLEWELLYN-WILLIAMS 1951- - 701

Reed Ngetal -- n ... ,.; To the Islands • -,;; ,-. • • .; • - !. The Sealwife ,;[ j ,'..,, - ; Animaculture :- • ••. > .:•••, A Lap of Apples

ROBERT MINHINNICK1952- , ,. .. :.\'\,\.1\\

Salvage , , . M The Drinking Art .,-,.-•. .,: After a Friendship ,, ;, .. -.•• > -•, • China 1830

The Bombing of Baghdad as Seen from an,Electrical .,;, Goods Shop ,, ., One Moment on the Avenida ,,.,.. ... , . . The Orchids of Cwm-y-Gaer ,-,...

xxxii Cymmer Abbey Worlds

RICHARD GWYN 1956- 755 Einkorn, Spelt and Emmer La Vendange Modes of Travel New Year's Journey

CATHERINE FISHER 1957- 760 Severn Bore Immrama Poem for David Lewis Gwern-y-cleppa Those who Make Paths

OLIVER REYNOLDS 1957- 767 Smile, Please Self-Portrait Dysgu , .. . Daearyddiaeth To Whom It May Concern Caveat

GWYNETH LEWIS 1959- , 776 The Hedge L" ' ' '' '; "'''"''- ' r" '" ' •"" " '' ' Welsh Espionage (extract) V 'Welsh was the mother tongue, English was his' Advice on Adultery Mother Tongue J Angel of Depression ' '

xxxiv Zero Gravity (extracts) I 'Prologue' VI 'Last suppers, I fancy, are always wide-screen'

PAUL HENRY 1959- 787 Daylight Robbery The Visitors Holiday Home Comins Coch The Breath of Sleeping Boys ForXand Y House

FIONA OWEN 1959- 799 Boxing with Shadows Another Annunciation

STEPHEN KNIGHT 1960- 802 Double Writing The Heart of Saturday Night The Big Parade Daedalus Elvis After Lessons

ANNA WIGLEY1962- ' 810 In the Castle Grounds Durer'sTiare ' The Blue Skirt the Comb *

XXXV