Menna Elfyn

When Menna Elfyn published her bilingual selected poems in 1995, Tony Conran called her 'the ﬁrst Welsh poet in ﬁfteen hundred years to make a serious attempt to have her work known outside Wales'. Her second bilingual volume, Cell Angel, was hailed by the same critic as the most significant collection of Welsh poetry for forty years. The metaphysical energies initiated in Cell Angel find full liberation in this, her third bilingual collection, whose extraordinary range of subjects, breathtaking inventiveness and generosity of vision place Menna Elfyn, effortlessly, among Europe's leading poets. Hers is a poetry of daringly imaginative leaps, exploring both inner and outer landscapes, taking exuberant liberties with language, and presenting her translators with formidable challenges. Her questing eye, affection-ately critical of many domestic presumptions, restlessly interrogates horizons that others have ignored or taken as read, from the mutating social landscapes of home to the concrete cliffs of Manhattan or the culinary byways of Vietnam. But wherever she finds herself - and as a reader in demand all over the world, she is the most travelled of all Welsh poets - Menna Elfyn never loses sight of Wales.

Blind man's kiss

Madfall ar y mur

This bilingual edition of Elfyn's later poetry includes all her work from Cell Angel (1996) and Blind Man's Kiss / Cusan Dyn Dall (2001), as well as the first English translations of Perffaith Nam (2005) and a selection of new poems. The Welsh originals in this book have facing English translations by Elin ap Hywel, Joseph Clancy, Gillian Clarke, Tony Conran, Nigel Jenkins and Robert Minhinnick.

new & selected poems, 1995-2007

Perfect blemish

John Rowlands

Welsh is the oldest surviving Celtic language, and the most flourishing. For around fifteen centuries Welsh poets have expressed an intense awareness of what it is like to be human in this part of the world in poems of extraordinary range and depth. And despite the global tendency towards homogenisation, Welsh poets have fought back, drawing inspiration from both the traditional and the contemporary to forge a new and rainbow-like modernism. This wide-ranging anthology of 20th-century Welsh-language poetry in English translation - by far the most comprehensive of its kind - will be a revelation for most readers. It will dispel the romantic images of Welsh poets as bards or druids and blow away any preconceived mists of Celtic twilight. This poetry is full of vitality, combining old craftsmanship and daring innovation, humour and angst, the oral and the literary. The selection brings together poets of every hue: from magisterial figures like T Gwynn Jones, R Williams Parry and Saunders Lewis to folk poets such as Alun Cilie and Dic Jones; from cerebral poets Pennar Davies and Bobi Jones to popular entertainers Geraint Løvgreen and Ifor ap Glyn. There are Chaplinesque poets, rebellious and subversive ones, lyrical voices and storytellers. The variety is enormous: from Welsh performance poetry to song lyrics; from the wry social comment of Grahame Davies to the contemporary parables of Gwyneth Lewis, who writes different kinds of poems in Welsh and English. This exuberant chorus of voices from the margins of Europe proves that poetry in this minority language is far from stagnant. Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation.

20th-century Welsh-language Poetry in Translation

The Bloodaxe Book of Modern Welsh Poetry

Owen Sheers

Geraint Jones

Jon Gower

Robert Minhinnick

Gillian Clarke

Dan Llywelyn Hall

Eric Ngalle Charles

Sian Melangell Dafydd

clare e potter

Laura Wainwright

Mary Gladys Coles

To coincide with the 50th anniversary of Offa's Dyke Path, a publication published by Ravenmade, featuring 12 newly commissioned poems & Dan's collection of paintings has been launched. The bilingual book features an introduction by Jon Gower and poetry by: Ifor ap Glyn (Poet Laureate of Wales), Gillian Clarke, Eric Ngalle Charles, Menna Elfyn, Robert Minhinnick, Oliver Lomax, Sian Melangell Dafydd, Owen Sheers, Laura Wainwright, Geriant Jones, clare e. potter and Gladys Mary Coles all inspired by Offa's Dyke.

Poetry and paintings inspired by Offa's Dyke

Walking with Offa / Cerdded gydag Offa

Menna Elfyn

About

Books

Join the club