Poetry
Category: Individual Collections, Poetry
Number of pages: 70
ISBN: 9780907476788
Publication date: February 23, 1995
Price: £3.95
Many of the poems in this collection are written for people whom they celebrate and remember. They include a homage to Sorley Maclean, ‘A Fern from Skye’, and the ‘Elegy for the Welsh Dead’, perhaps the finest poem about the Falklands War ever written. Blodeuwedd is concerned with both personal loss and the organisation of death on a massive scale, by famine or war. Almost half the book is devoted to the remarkable ’dance poem’, a modern retelling of the Blodeuwedd story from the Mabinogion, in which Blodeuwedd and her lover plot the death of her husband. No poet in Wales has been so influenced by Welsh language poetry as Tony Conran. His work is a continuing experiment in adapting Welsh traditions, in both form and subject, to English writing. The result is a powerful and humane poetry.
Tony Conran (1931-2013)
Poet, translator, dramatist, teacher and literary commentator, much of Tony’s fifty plus year career was spent at the centre, or perhaps the interface would be a better word, of English and Welsh language cultures. Though he was never afraid to ask the awkward question, or to follow a difficult argument, he was a generous teacher, collaborator and person. His translations from Welsh poetry stretching over a thousand years were landmarks, and testimony to his ability to empathise with writers and writing across centuries of differing experiences and conditions. Tony’s own poetry was often demanding, sometimes almost mesmerising in its craft and conviction. He was able to take poetry to more places than most poets in the second half of the twentieth century, as those whose starting point was his truly memorable ‘Elegy for the Welsh Dead, killed in the Falkland Islands’ would quickly discover. Formerly The Penguin Book of Welsh Verse, Seren has expanded his selection of high quality translations in Welsh Verse, published in August 2017. A distinctive writer and critic, his intelligent contribution to the literary life of Wales will be missed.
