Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry

Matthew Jarvis

Description

Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry’ examines the question of how recent English-language poetry from Wales has responded to the diverse physical environments of Wales. The first volume to offer a sustained assessment of Welsh poetry in English within the context of recent developments in environmental literary criticism, this book also draws on aspects of human geography to explore the rich contemporary poetics of Welsh space and place. Opening with an examination of poets from the 1960s as well as the early work of R.S. Thomas, ‘Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry’ subsequently concentrates on the poetry of writers who have come to prominence since the 1970s: Gillian Clarke, Ruth Bidgood, Robert Minhinnick, Mike Jenkins, Christine Evans, and Ian Davidson.Close reading of key texts reveals the way in which these writers variously create Welsh places, landscapes, and environments – fashioning rural and urban spaces into poetic geographies that are both abundantly physical and inescapably cultural. Far from reducing Wales to mere scenery, the poetry that emerges from this book engages with the environments of Wales, not just for their own sake, but as a crucial way of exploring key issues in Welsh culture – from the negotiation of female identity in a land of masculine myths to the exploration of Welsh space in a global context.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Idioma inglés
• Idioma galés
• English
• Poetry
• Welsh
• Anglais

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786837325
• Langue: English

Extrait

Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry

Writing Wales in English
CREW series of Critical and Scholarly Studies General Editor: Professor M. Wynn Thomas (CREW, Swansea University)
This CREW series is dedicated to Emyr Humphreys, a major figure in the literary culture of modern Wales, a founding patron of the Centre for Research into the English Literature and Language of Wales , and, along with Gillian Clarke and Seamus Heaney, one of CREW ’s Honorary Associates. Grateful thanks are extended to Richard Dynevor for making this series possible.
Other titles in the series
Stephen Knight, A Hundred Years of Fiction (978-0-7083-1846-1) Barbara Prys-Williams, Twentieth-century Autobiography (978-0-7083-1891-1)
Kirsti Bohata, Postcolonialism Revisited (978-0-7083-1892-8) Linden Peach, Contemporary Irish and Welsh Women’s Fiction (978-0-7083-1998-7)
Chris Wiggington, Modernism from the Margins (978-0-7083-1927-7) Sarah Prescott, Eighteenth-century Writing from Wales (978-0-7083-2053-2)
Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry

Writing Wales in English
MATTHEW JARVIS
© Matthew Jarvis, 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without clearance from the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NS.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN:  978-0-70832-152-2
eISBN:  978-1-78683-732-5
The right of Matthew Jarvis to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts 1988.

The publishers wish to acknowledge the financial support of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales in the publication of this book.
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Cover image: Sunset over Anglesey by Kyffin Williams, National Library of Wales © Estate of Kyffin Williams. All rights reserved, DACS 2008.
To Kate, Danny, and Ethan and in memory of Anthony Dyson
C ONTENTS
General Editor’s Preface
Acknowledgements
I: Starting with Trees
1 Conifers
2 A Digression on Writing and Environment
3 The 1960s Generation and R. S. Thomas to 1968
II: Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry
4 Gillian Clarke: Beyond an Environment of the Senses
5 Ruth Bidgood: Reinhabiting Mid Wales
6 Robert Minhinnick: From Pen-y-fai to Iraq
7 Mike Jenkins: Locating the Depredations of Power
8 Christine Evans: Creating Sacred Space
9 Ian Davidson: ‘the form and function of the world’
10 Afterword: ‘a landscape with everything in it’
Notes
Bibliography
G ENERAL E DITOR’S P REFACE
The aim of this series is to produce a body of scholarly and critical work that reflects the richness and variety of the English-language literature of modern Wales. Drawing upon the expertise both of established specialists and of younger scholars, it will seek to take advantage of the concepts, models and discourses current in the best contemporary studies to promote a better understanding of the literature’s significance, viewed not only as an expression of Welsh culture but also as an instance of modern literatures in English worldwide. In addition, it will seek to make available the scholarly materials (such as bibliographies) necessary for this kind of advanced, informed study.
M. Wynn Thomas
Director, CREW ( Centre for Research into the English Language and Literature of Wales )
Swansea University
A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Whatever the solitary name on its front cover may suggest, a book with a single author is never a solo project. My thanks are due to a wide variety of people who have supported the work that has produced this volume. Most specifically, I am deeply grateful for the friendship and editorial insight of Wynn Thomas, who has scrutinized my manuscript at every stage with unwavering precision and kindness. Without his enthusiasm for this project, it simply would not have happened. Sarah Lewis at the University of Wales Press has also been exemplary in her assistance, having shepherded the book on its way from proposal to submission. Beyond the book itself, I also owe significant thanks to Francesca Rhydderch, Robert Minhinnick and Tony Brown, all of whom, as editors of (respectively) New Welsh Review , Poetry Wales and Welsh Writing in English , have for some years encouraged and published my writing on the anglophone poetry of Wales. Alongside them, I am constantly grateful for the kind support I have received from long-suffering friends – especially Peter Barry, Jasmine Donahaye, Alice Entwistle, Martin Padget, Francesca Rhydderch, Luke Thurston and Damian Walford Davies. Indeed, to Damian I owe particular thanks for discussing with me my very first ideas about the book and for his suggestion to pitch it to UWP’s CREW series. In terms of beginnings, I must also note a special debt to Grahame Davies for an e-mail conversation about earth, air, water and fire – all in a Welsh context – which helped to develop my thoughts in particularly useful ways just before I started writing the bulk of the volume. I am, furthermore, significantly indebted to the University of Wales, Lampeter, whose decision to appoint me, in September 2007, to undertake full-time research in the Department of English as the Anthony Dyson Fellow in Poetry has so greatly assisted this book’s completion. Finally, of course, love and gratitude are due in great measure to my parents, who not only introduced me to Wales when I was young – on very fondly remembered family holidays – but who have also furnished me with otherwise-forgotten details about those childhood visits here. To all these people, then – and to those many others with whom I have talked about the ideas covered here and about literature in Wales in general – Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry is offered back as a reflection of their various and ongoing generosity. Whatever problems the volume may have are, of course, entirely my own responsibility.
For granting permission to use quotations in this book, I am grateful to the following: Ruth Bidgood and Seren for the poetry of Ruth Bidgood; Carcanet Press for the poetry of Gillian Clarke; Ian Davidson for the poetry of Ian Davidson; Christine Evans and Seren for the poetry of Christine Evans; Bryn Griffiths for the poetry of Bryn Griffiths; Mike Jenkins, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, Planet and Seren for the poetry of Mike Jenkins; Robert Minhinnick, Carcanet Press and Seren for the poetry of Robert Minhinnick; the estate of R. S. Thomas for the poetry of R. S. Thomas (© Kunjana Thomas 2001) – ‘A Peasant’, ‘Ire’ and ‘Country Church (Manafon)’ from R. S. Thomas, The Stones of the Field (Carmarthen: Druid Press, 1946); ‘The Minister’ from R. S. Thomas, Song at the Year’s Turning: Poems 1942–1954 (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1955); ‘Afforestation’ from R. S. Thomas, The Bread of Truth (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1963); ‘The Moor’ and ‘The Face’ from R. S. Thomas, Pietà (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1966); ‘Reservoirs’ and ‘Tenancies’ from R. S. Thomas, Not That He Brought Flowers (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968); Jean Henderson for the poetry of John Tripp; the University of Minnesota Press for the work of Yi-Fu Tuan; and Meic Stephens for the poetry of Harri Webb. For permission to cite or quote from personal correspondence, I am grateful to Ruth Bidgood, Gillian Clarke, Ian Davidson, Mike Jenkins and Robert Minhinnick. Earlier versions of Chapters 8 and 9 of this book appeared (respectively) in volumes 11 and 10 of Welsh Writing in English: A Yearbook of Critical Essays ; I am grateful to the editor, Tony Brown, for his permission to reprint here. Chapters 4 and 5 contain some elements of my essay ‘Repositioning Wales: poetry after the Second Flowering’, in Daniel Williams (ed.), Slanderous Tongues: Essays on Welsh Poetry in English 1975–2005 (Bridgend, Seren, forth-coming); I am grateful to Seren for permission to reuse relevant material here.
It was the birth of my son Danny in July 2004 that let me escape formal employment the following summer to become, for a couple of years, a full-time father and part-time writer. I am quite unable to repay him for the chance he gave me to rediscover what really mattered to me, both personally and as a literary critic. And to my wife, Kate, who has kept faith with my slow, disorderly, flawed journey, there are never sufficient words of thanks for all her kindness.
Llanbadarn Fawr January 2008
I
Starting with Trees
1
Conifers
As a boy, I used to go with my family to north-west Wales for our yearly holidays. We would make our slow way from the English midlands in a white Morris Marina that was well past its sell-by date. Seeing the Rhinogs rise up sternly to the west of the A470 would signal our arrival, and it is a view that still fills me with a surge of excitement when I see it. Those Welsh holidays were highlights of my early years. They were an escape to a place I felt was entirely different from the one where I passed my day-to-day life. I couldn’t quite believe it when, after a fatefully inclement July in 1988, my parents said that they were fed up with the Welsh weather and that we would be visiting somewhere else from then on. We had been holidaying in Wales since June 1979, when I was not quite 8 years old, so when those yearly pilgrimages stopped it felt like the final passing of childhood. But while our Welsh escapes lasted, I was always particularly drawn to the Coed y Brenin forest, just a few miles to the north of Dolgellau. Whenever I could, I would drag my sometimes-re