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Appearances
19 Ionawr 2012
Noson yng Nghwmni Gwyneth Lewis
Galeri Caernarfon
6 February 2012 (19 00)
Poetry Reading
The Promised Land, Windsor Place, Cardiff
Gleision Mining disaster
Gwyneth was invited by BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend to write a poem responding to the Gleision Mining disaster. Please donate to the the Swansea Valley Miners Appeal Fund here:
http://www.minersappealfund.org/
Gleision
Tops of trees, their roots in seams
Of dark. King under mountain.
The cave's an open mouth whose words
Are men who work their mountain.
Pine, larch and oak. Don't touch the bell
That tolls from out the mountain
Or he will stir, and miners die
Like light inside a mountain.
His breath is black and marks each face
That seeks beneath the mountain.
Leaves drift down, but they won't heal
The sentence of the mountain.
It's time to lose all hope and seal
The grave. King lies in his mountain.
Gwyneth Lewis
The Stone That Moved
The Stone That Moved
Thursday, BBC Radio 3, 9.15pm
Radio Choice, Telegraph
"A lovely talk. One wet Aberystwyth holiday in the 1970s Gwyneth Lewis's mother decided they'd have an adventure, go in search of the Taliesin stone. Taliesin was a 6th-century Welsh poet, much revered. They say if you sleep with your head on his stone it will make a poet, or send you mad, or possibly both. To look at, it's just a boulder in a field and she only touched it. Guess what? She became the first National Poet of Wales."
Gillian Reynolds
Praise for Sparrow Tree
"Since winning the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize in 1995, Gwyneth Lewis (Wales's first National Poet) has steadily gained recognition from critics as one of the most gifted writers of her generation... These poems work especially well if read aloud, when the lovely half-rhymes and alliteration are fully audible... The impression is of someone deeply involved in the process of making."
Poetry Review
"[an] impressive, restrained collection....The most lyrical writing is to be found in "Birder" (an elegy for an aunt), packed with metaphor and a rigorous, energetic music that once more addresses "the end" - "When I die / I want to hear birds ricochet/ Outside my window... I'd like/ To deserve this litany:/ Woodpecker, waxwing, chickadee."
The Guardian
"Gwyneth Lewis is my favourite modern poet... It is a privilege to have this new slim volume of poems in my hands... Sparrow Tree did not disappoint. I found the poems... colourful, poignant, funny and thought provoking... Every poem has characters who come alive with Gwyneth's gifted use of words... I recommend this book to all readers who love poetry and to those who don't - I would say, just try it - and see for yourself how beautifully written and accessible Gwyneth Lewis's poetry is."
"Gwyneth Lewis's previous collection A Hospital Odyssey was received well by critics, and this latest collection should be no different. Sparrow Tree presents poetry ostensibly about the huge variety of birds native to both the UK and America, but on delving deeper into the natural imagery the reader is presented with the wilds of the human mind as habitat for these birds, and the birds themselves as mouthpieces for human emotion... Wales's erstwhile National Poet has much to offer - as Elaine Feinstein puts it in the Guardian: "Such exuberant invention... The range of reference is so wide, we are intoxicated by it.". "
New Books
Latest
On 12 July, 2011 Gwyneth Lewis resigned as a Vice President of the Poetry Society. She said:
"I have felt very honoured to serve as a Vice President of the Poetry Society but, because of the way in which the role of the Vice Presidents is now being perceived as identical with that of the Board of Trustees, rather than purely honorary, I feel compelled to resign with immediate effect."
Radio Documentary prize
In Search of Gododdin, written and narrated by Gwyneth Lewis, produced by Jeremy Grange, wins Radio Documentary prize in the Celtic Media Festival.
Gwyneth is currently Mary Amelia Cummins Harvey Visiting Fellow Commoner at Girton College, Cambridge.
Praise for The Meat Tree
"The bar is set high but The Meat Tree, Gwyneth Lewis's gripping and intelligent exploration of the fourth branch of the Mabinogi, Blodeuwedd's tale, does not disappoint."
"Gwyneth Lewis's astute handling to time... enables her to combine the archetypal themes of myth with concerns that preoccupy our twenty-first century consciousness. Power, morality, man and nature, gender relations, art and reality, and above all, notions of separation and exile, heritage and loss, are refracted through the prism of a spatially and temporally distant future, constantly in motion against both our own present and the mythic Blodeuwedd past. These temporal shifts are matched by Lewis's fearless mixing of the modes of poetry, prose and drama in her quest to conjure a world that will resonate long after the tale has ended, in the reader's mind."
"The successful recreation of myth requires a wiliness that exceeds that of the original mythmakers, and Lewis patiently and skillfully demonstrates that willingness in presenting to her readers 'the battle between meat and magic, between body and imagination.'"
"'What kind of being does a virtual world create?' asks Gwyneth Lewis's Campion. 'If two negatives make a positive, then can two virutals make an actual? Have we just conjured up a person who's real? Or one who is death?' Such thoughtful probing of existential and artistic issues shows a significant respect for the challenge that the Seren project presents to its writers."
Times Literary Supplement
More Praise for A Hospital Odyssey
'This is an exciting work... written in the tradition of Dante but it is also very contemporary. Lewis makes imaginative use of research into cancer including areas such as stem cells and makes references to issues such as cleanliness in hospital and unnecessary administration... The language is both racy and poetic and every now and then the poet steps outside the story to address the reader directly. The poem is lit with humour, satire and burlesque. At the same time it is very humane. It is a brilliantly inventive piece of work."
Artemis
Selected as a 2010 Times Book of the Year
"Gwyneth Lewis's astonishing book-length poem... Lewis's unfettered imagination transforms weighty subject matter into a heady mix of dream vision, ripping yarn and love story. The hospital becomes a version of Dante's Inferno, where Maris witnesses the Microbes' Ball ('Imagine a disco painted by Bosch") and meets, among others, Helen of Troy and Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the NHS. Along the way there are also hard-won insights: "When love's so weary it hopes for nothing/ It's at its strongest, though it feels no power."
Cholmondeley Award
Gwyneth was given a Society of Authors Cholmondeley Award recognizing a body of work and achievement of distinction
The Cholmondeley Awards for Poets were founded by the late Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966 to recognise the achievement and distinction of individual poets.
They are honorary awards and submissions are not accepted.
The recipients are chosen by the Awards Committee for their general body of work and contribution to poetry.
The Cholmondeley Awards for Poets
http://www.societyofauthors.org/cholmondeley
Praise for The Meat Tree
"Seren's series of new stories inspired by the Mabinogion may be the greatest service to the Welsh national epic since Lady Charlotte Guest published her translation of the medieval folk tales in the mid-19th century."
"Gwyneth Lewis... provides a satisfyingly bizarre context for a narrative about an unfaithful woman made of flowers who turns into an owl, while Lewis's inspector observes events from a hilariously jobs-worth perspective: 'I'm an experienced enough traveler to know that you lose all dignity on a space trip. But that's usually to do with toilet matters, not being banished to a forest with your student, turned into an animal and forced to reproduce.'"
Alfred Hickling, Guardian
The Meat Tree
Gwyneth Lewis publishes her first Novella - The Meat Tree
"Gwyneth Lewis... provides a satisfyingly bizarre context for a narrative about an unfaithful woman made of flowers who turns into an owl, while Lewis's inspector observes events from a hilariously jobs-worth perspective: 'I'm an experienced enough traveler to know that you lose all dignity on a space trip. But that's usually to do with toilet matters, not being banished to a forest with your student, turned into an animal and forced to reproduce.'"
Alfred Hickling, Guardian
Praise for A Hospital Odyssey
"This is a performance that more than confirms Gwyneth Lewis's reputation as one of the most exhilaratingly gifted poets of her generation."
"An epic for our time... What contemporary poet would dare take on the challenge of such an august and demanding form? As Lewis makes clear, in a work that constantly reflects on its own processes and proceeding, writing a (female) epic was for her not a result of choice but of sheer necessity, its creation a matter of life and death..."
"Adventitious rhyming, such as this supple verse form allows, is the natural ally of Lewis's remarkably resourceful wit and her gift for metamorphic imagination."
"This... is virtuoso writing whose end mercifully, is not self-display but the healthful mobilization of the will."
M Wynn Thomas, The Guardian
"Lewis' epic offers up a dash of Beowulf, Dante, the Crucifixion, the bees in the Book of Judges, even 'Orfeo ed Euridice' and 'The Magic Flute'... The narrator... teases us in a literary hide-and-seek, Onegin-like, from behind the mask of her protagonist. What remains is a voice vibrant, lively and clear as a bell - not looking inward so much as in wonder at the world around her. And, pressed from her lines, a rare vintage of wisdom."
Cynthia L. Haven, San Francisco Chronicle
"This is a fascinating, beautifully written poem that describes the epic journey of the soul through the support of one's spouse through cancer treatment. It is a journey of imagination and a highly recommended read."
Professor Sir Martin Evans, Nobel Laureate 2008
"Like all the best tales, this one ends happily. With her vivid medical, mythological and painterly imagery, absorbing ruminations on language and poetry, touching evocation of the power of a marriage - and with Helen's gift of an opal and black diamond ring glinting on her finger - Gwyneth Lewis has surpassed herself."
Ruth Fainlight, Poetry Review
"As a quite extraordinary piece of machinery, which all great poems must surely be, it is more than the sum of its parts that turn and fire in an elaborate harmony; it's an engine well-adjusted to its environment and is as lean-burn as any engine can get; the torque is tightened, that is to say, to maximize performance."
"A Hospital Odyssey marks new ground. In 2010, when our corporate sensibility continues to be brutalized by the destructive reality we inhabit, collections of occasional poems that strike wearyingly conventional targets have an increasing sense of their own solipsistic irrelevance. The job of poetry, implies this book, is never to be cursory; it must travel, as this poem does, from ring to inner ring of experiential truth. Any oeuvre of value tends to lead a poet in seriousness towards epic intention. Gwyneth Lewis has arrived in that place and produced her best book to date."
Tim Liardet, New Welsh Review
"Only poetry could hope to handle fantasy of this order... What is most remarkable in a book of such exuberant invention is that the reader continues to believe in Maris's intense longing for her sick husband."
Elaine Feinstein, The Independent
"A Hospital Odyssey proves vividly original, engaging in its contemporary concerns, unpredictability and wit."
Carrie Etter, Poetry Wales
"Odyssey indeed...This funny-serious 'treatment' of illness, bolstered by a specially-garnered knowledge is one way of dealing with the possibility of a loss otherwise unspeakable."
Nigel Jarrett, Acumen
"An immensely readable modern epic, Gwyneth Lewis's poem is distinctive and compelling."
Poetry Book Society
What is Art + Invention?
SiCa Presents: Gwyneth Lewis from SiCa on Vimeo.
Gwyneth Lewis reading at SiCa Stanford University 10 November, 2009
Gwyneth is currently Joint SiCa/ Stanford Humanities Center Fellow in the Arts and Humanities at Stanford University
2008 - 2009 Julia S. Phelps Annual Lecture in Art and the Humanities
Gwyneth Lewis gvies a lecture on "The Health of Poetry. A Video of lecture available to watch online.
2008 - 2009 Julia S. Phelps Annual Lecture in Art and the Humanities
http://www.radcliffe.edu/events/calendar_2008lewis.aspx
Gwyneth Lewis reads two poems
Gwyneth Lewis from Neil Astley on Vimeo.
Gwyneth Lewis reads two poems from Chaotic Angels: Poems in English (Bloodaxe Books, 2005), 'Welsh Espionage' [5] and 'Mother Tongue'. This film is from the DVD-book In Person: 30 Poets, filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce & edited by Neil Astley (Bloodaxe Books, 2008).
Wales Appoints Its First National Poet
Press Release - Academi, 30 April, 2005
The United Kingdom has a Poet Laureate. Scotland has its Maker. Most states in the US have state poets. Canada has a Poet Laureate. In the USA there's a Poet Laureate Consultant. Now, after a six year campaign, Wales appoints its first National Poet.
Gwyneth Lewis, author of the world's biggest poem (the Wales Millennium Centre bi-lingual inscription), NESTA fellow (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), author of six books of poems in two languages, a Book of the Year winner, librettist, sailor, and probably Wales' best known poet since R S Thomas will be inaugurated as our first National Poet at a special 2.30 pm event at the Hay Literature Festival on May 30th this year.
The appointment of the first National Poet of Wales is made possible by direct funding from the Arts Council of Wales. The appointment is for one year with an option to renew for a second and will be administered by Academi, the Welsh National Literature Promotion Agency and Society of Writers.
Gwyneth Lewis was the unanimous choice for National Poet made by a group advising the Academi at a meeting in Cardiff recently. Members of this group include the National Eisteddfod, the National Library, the Welsh Assembly Government's Culture committee, the Arts Council of Wales, Yr Gymdeithas Gerdd Dafod, Ty Newydd, the Dylan Thomas Centre, the University of Glamorgan and the Association for the Study of Welsh Writing in English.
Wales has a long tradition of valuing highly its poets with the creation of a Bardd Plant Cymru (a Welsh Children's Poet) each year and the chairing and crowning of poets at the annual National Eisteddfod. The National Poet, however, will be the first post which will serve Wales on a national basis and do this through both languages.
The National Poet will act as a cultural ambassador for Wales - marking and celebrating our lives through verse. She will take poetry into places it may not normally go in both the public and private area. Unlike England's Poet Laureate Wales's national Poet will not be required to write verse for specific formal occasions but will, instead, follow her inspiration. Gwyneth Lewis has already written a poem on Wales' Grand Slam Victory and an elegy for Gwynfor Evans.
Gwyneth Lewis said: "It's a huge privilege to be representing poetry in Wales, where we have a poetic tradition stretching back to the sixth century and fully present in the twenty-first." Academi Chief Executive Peter Finch, who has long campaigned for the creation of a National Poet said: "I am delighted that poetry in Wales at last has a national champion. Gwyneth Lewis is the perfect choice." Gwyneth Lewis's inauguration at the Hay festival will be followed by a series of high profile appearances at public events throughout Wales.
Cymru'n Penodi ei Bardd Cenedlaethol Cyntaf
Datganiad i'r Wasg - Academi, 30ain Ebrill, 2005
Mae gan y Deyrnas Unedig ei Poet Laureate a chan yr Alban ei Makar. Mae gan y rhan fwyaf o daleithiau UDA feirdd taleithiol. Yng Nghanada mae ganddynt fardd llawryfog ac yn UDA mae Bardd Llawryfog Ymgynghorol. Ac yn awr, wedi chwe blynedd o ymgyrchu, mae Cymru'n penodi ei Bardd Cenedlaethol cyntaf.
Bydd Gwyneth Lewis, awdur cerdd fwyaf y byd (yr arysgrif ddwyieithog ar Ganolfan Mileniwm Cymru), enillydd un o gymrodoriaethau pwysig NESTA (Y Gwaddoliad Gwladol ar gyfer Gwyddoniaeth, Technoleg a'r Celfyddydau) awdur chwe llyfr o farddoniaeth mewn dwy iaith, enillydd Llyfr y Flwyddyn, libretydd, morwr, a bardd mwyaf adnabyddus Cymru mae'n debyg ers R S Thomas, yn cael ei hurddo'n fardd cenedlaethol cyntaf Cymru mewn digwyddiad arbennig yng Ngwyl y Gelli am 2.30 p.m. ar Fai 30ain eleni.
Mae penodiad Bardd Cenedlaethol cyntaf Cymru yn bosibl o ganlyniad i gyllid uniongyrchol gan Gyngor Celfyddydau Cymru. Penodiad am flwyddyn ydyw ond bydd modd dewis adnewyddu am ail flwyddyn. Gweinyddir y penodiad gan yr Academi, Asiantaeth Genedlaethol er Hyrwyddo Llenyddiaeth a Chymdeithas Llenorion Cymru.
Dewiswyd Gwyneth Lewis yn unfrydol yn Fardd Cenedlaethol mewn cyfarfod yng Nghaerdydd yn ddiweddar gan grwp a oedd yn cynghori'r Academi. Mae aelodau'r grwp hwn yn cynnwys yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, y Llyfrgell Genedlaethol, Pwyllgor Diwylliant Llywodraeth Cynulliad Cymru, Cyngor Celfyddydau Cymru, y Gymdeithas Gerdd Dafod, Ty Newydd, Canolfan Dylan Thomas, Prifysgol Morgannwg a'r Gymdeithas dros Astudio Ysgrifennu Cymreig yn Saesneg.
Mae gan Gymru draddodiad hir o werthfawrogi ei beirdd gyda chreu Bardd Plant Cymru bob blwyddyn a chadeirio a choroni beirdd yn yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol flynyddol. Y Bardd Cenedlaethol, serch hynny, fydd y penodiad cyntaf i wasanaethu Cymru gyfan a gwneud hynny drwy gyfrwng y ddwy iaith.
Bydd y Bardd Cenedlaethol yn gweithredu fel llysgennad diwylliannol i Gymru - gan nodi a dathlu ein bywydau trwy gyfrwng barddoniaeth. Bydd yn mynd â barddoniaeth i lefydd na fyddai fel rheol yn eu cyrraedd yn y maes cyhoeddus a phreifat. Yn wahanol i'r Poet Laureate yn Lloegr, ni fydd gofyn i Fardd cenedlaethol Cymru ysgrifennu barddoniaeth ar gyfer achlysuron ffurfiol penodol. Yn hytrach, bydd yn dilyn ei hawen ei hun. Mae Gwyneth Lewis eisoes wedi ysgrifennu cerdd am Gamp Lawn Cymru a marwnad i Gwynfor Evans.
Meddai Gwyneth Lewis: "Mae'n fraint aruthrol cael cynrychioli barddoniaeth yng Nghymru, lle mae gennym draddodiad barddol sy'n ymestyn yn ôl i'r chweched ganrif ac sy'n dal yn gwbl fyw yn yr unfed ganrif ar hugain." Meddai Prif Weithredwr yr Academi, Peter Finch, sydd wedi ymgyrchu'n hir dros greu Bardd Cenedlaethol: "Rwyf wrth fy modd bod gan farddoniaeth yng Nghymru o'r diwedd ladmerydd cenedlaethol. Gwyneth Lewis yw'r dewis perffaith." Dilynir sefydlu Gwyneth Lewis yng Ngwyl y Gelli gan gyfres o ymddangosiadau amlwg mewn digwyddiadau cyhoeddus ledled Cymru.
Wales Millennium Centre
CREU GWIR FEL GWYDR O FFWRNAIS AWEN
IN THESE STONES HORIZONS SING
I wrote the words to reflect the cultural ambition of the Centre. They draw both on Wales's industrial past and the institution's location in Cardiff Bay, once the greatest coal port in the world. Each letter is six-foot tall and formed of stained glass, set in glass-reinforced gypsum.
Creu Gwir fel Gwydr o Ffwrnais Awen
(Translation: 'Creating truth like glass from inspiration's furnace'.)
I wanted the words to reflect the architecture of the building. Its copper dome reminded me of the furnaces from Wales's industrial heritage and also Ceridwen's cauldron, from which the early poet Taliesin received his inspiration ('awen'). 'Awen' suggests both poetic inspiration and the general creative vision by which people and societies form their aspirations.
The windows out of which the words are made suggest to me an ideal of poetry: that it should be clear enough to let light in and out of a building, offering enough a distinctively local view of the world; it should speak a truth which is transparent, beautifully crafted but also fragile and, therefore, doubly precious.
In these Stones Horizons Sing
It was important to me that the English words on the building should not simply be a translation of the Welsh, that they should have their own message. The strata of the slate frontage of the WMC reminded me of the horizons just beyond Penarth Head. The sea has, traditionally, been for Cardiff the means by which the Welsh export their best to the world and the route by which the world comes to Cardiff. The stones inside the theatre literally sing with opera, musicals and orchestral music, and I wanted to convey the sense of an international space created by the art of music.
Canolfan Mileniwm Cymru
CREU GWIR FEL GWYDR O FFWRNAIS AWEN
IN THESE STONES HORIZONS SING
Cyfansoddais y geiriau ar flaen Canolfan Mileniwm Cymru er mwyn cyfleu uchelgais ddiwylliannol y sefydliad. Fe'm hysbrydolwyd gan orffennol diwydiannol Cymru a chan gofio mai Caerdydd, ar un adeg, oedd prif borthladd glo y byd . Mae llythrennau'r arysgrifen chwe troedfedd o uchder wedi eu creu o wydr lliw a osodwyd mewn gypsum wedi ei gryfhau gan wydr.
Creu Gwir fel Gwydr o Ffwrnais Awen
Roeddwn i'n awyddus i weld yr arysgrifen yn adlewyrchu pensaerniaeth yr adeilad. Roedd cromen gopr y theatr yn fy atgoffa o ffwrneisi gorffennol diwydiannol Cymru, ac hefyd o Bair Ceridwen, crochan lle cafodd y bardd cynnar Taliesin ei awen. Nid yw'r gair 'awen' yn gyfyngedig i ysbrydoliaeth farddonol, ond mae'n cyfeirio hefyd at y weledigaeth greadigol sy'n creu delfrydau cymdeithasol.
Roedd cael y geiriau mewn ffenestri gwydr yn cynnig delwedd o farddoniaeth i mi: dylai fod yn ddigon clir i daflu golau y tu mewn a thu allan i adeilad, yn cynnig golwg hollol neilltuol a lleol ar y byd; dylai ddatgan gwirionedd sydd yn dryloyw, yn grefftus ond hefyd yn fregus, ac yn fwy gwerthfawr o'r herwydd.
In these Stones Horizons Sing
('Gorwelion yn canu o fewn y meini hyn')
Roedd hi'n bwysig i fi nad oedd geiriau Saesneg yr arysgrifen yn gyfieithiad o'r Gymraeg, ond eu bod yn cyfleu eu neges eu hunain. Roedd strata llechi blaen yr adeilad yn gwneud i mi feddwl am y gorwelion ychydig y tu hwnt i Benarth. Bu'r môr yn gyfrwng i Gaerdydd allforio glo i bedwar ban a mewnforio'r byd at y ddinas. Bydd meini'r theatr yn canu'n llythrennol gydag opera, sioeau cerdd a cherddorfeydd, ac roeddwn yn awyddus i gyfleu'r syniad o ystafell enfawr ryngwladol yn cael ei chreu gan gerddoriaeth.
Poet's Odyssey
Gwyneth Lewis, one of the leading British poets of her generation is about to embark on a challenging four-year voyage around the world in a two-handed yacht. During the voyage she will visit the network of ports which were associated with her native Cardiff during its heyday as the largest coal port in the world. The voyage will be the means for Lewis to explore the nature of seamanship, as well as the culture of great port cities around the world and the trade routes which built them.
Gwyneth will be leaving the UK in the summer of 2002 and heading for Spain. Bilbao was where the first iron ore exports went from Cardiff, and the Spanish community which was subsequently established in Wales sent many soldiers to the Spanish Civil War. During the winter, she will move down to Portugal and, in the Spring of 2003, on to the Azores, from where she and her husband plan to cross the Atlantic. From the Caribbean, they will then go through the Panama Canal, into the Pacific, down to Australia and then on towards the Middle East.
Brought up in Cardiff, where her father worked for the Port Health Authority, Lewis has extensive family links with the sea. Her husband was in the Merchant Navy; one cousin was a ship's Master, another is currently a NASA astronaut, having been a jet pilot in the American Navy. Lewis, therefore, developed a fascination with watching the foreign ships entering and leaving the docks in Cardiff. Going to sea has been a lifelong dream. Having bought a 35-foot yacht with her redundancy money, Lewis, who recently passed her Yachtmaster theory exam, is now in a position to realise that dream.
Lewis was recently awarded a prestigious NESTA Fellowship to help with the project. She will also be working in several media to record the journey - poetry and radio among them. She has been commissioned by Flamingo to write a factual prose book on the voyage.