Cyfweliad / Interview: David Woolley interviews Menna Elfyn
Dynes Goch Pafiland |
The Red Lady of Paviland
Gwobr Farddoniaeth Ryngwladol i Menna Elfyn | Italian Award for Menna Elfyn
Listen to Menna Elfyn reading her work
Poems on the Underground
Gweithdai Disgyblion | Workshops to Works of Art
Ionawr / January 19: Launch/Reading ‘Fieldnotes’, Wexford Arts Centre
Mawrth / March 3: New York City – St David’s day Reading
Mawrth / March 4: Smith College, Mass, New England
Mawrth / March 5: Smith College, Mass, New England
Mawrth / March 6-8: AWP Boston Conference
Mawrth / March 12: Brecon Poetry Festival: Workshop in primary and secondary school & early evening reading in ‘The Hours’ Bookshop, Brecon; darlleniad dwyieithog yn y siop lyfrau leol
Ebrill / April 7: Wenlock Poetry Festival – Reading and workshop
Ebrill / April 18: Dylan Thomas centre – reading commissioned poem to celebrate centenary of RS Thomas - M Wynn Thomas’s launch ‘Serial Obsessive’.
Mai / May 1: Writer’s Group, Swansea – reading and talk
Mai / May 9: Writer’s Day in the Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea.
Interviewing Stevie Davies on her career as novelist
Mai / May 27: Barry Poetry Festival – Gweithdy/Workshop & Darlleniad hwyrnosol/ Evening Reading
Mai / May 29: Gwyl y Gelli/Hay Festival: Gala R.S Thomas centenary
Mehefin / June 1: Hay Festival/ Digital stage 8.30 poetry reading with singer-songwriter Fflur Dafydd.
Mehefin / June 6-10: Bremen Poetry Festival - On the Road
Mehefin / June 8: Llyfrgell Genedlaethol, agoriad ‘Nodiadau Maes’. Darlleniad/Sgwrs ganol Mehefin.
Mehefin / June 20: Plas Dinam – taith o gwmpas y Plas gyda Trevor Fishlock
Mehefin / June 26: Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Cymru/ National Museum of Wales: Darlleniad am 3.30pm yn dilyn darlith am y Chwiorydd Gregynog gan Oliver Fairclough
Awst / August 2-7: Cwrs Ysgrifennu Creadigol, Open Course – Writing at Ty Newydd, Llanystumdwy
Medi / September 15-18: Kritya, India. Lansiad/ Launch of Perfect Blemish into Hindi by Rati Saxena
Tachwedd / November 19-27: Poetry Festival in Hong Kong: Poetry Nights in Hong Kong
Reading at the wonderful 'The Hours' bookshop in Brecon, last event of the Brecon Women's Festival 2013. A wonderful bookshop / spent time in Brecon Secondary School, Ysgol y Bannau, reading from my new novel ' Y Pussaka Hud' and then reading from 'Murmur' - Bloodaxe, - Oh and before that I planted a tree for the Woodland Trust -- a rowan tree. A full but rewarding day.
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Darlleniad mewn siop lyfrau hyfryd yn Aberhonddu o'r enw 'The Hours'. Digwyddiad dwyieithog olaf Gwyl Menywod Aberhonddu 2013. Treuliais y bore yn Ysgol Uwchradd Aberhonddu, yna yn yr ysgol gynradd yn lansio fy nofel newydd i blant o'r enw 'Y Pussaka Hud' -- gwnes hyd yn oed blannu coeden i'r Ymddiriedolaeth y Coedlannau - sef criafolen. Diwrnod llawn i'r ymylon ond llawen.
Official launch at Wexford Arts Centre - Saturday 19th January at 4pm.
» Click here for more information.
» cliciwch yma /// click here to read more
(http://www.walesartsreview.org/murmur-by-menna-elfyn/)
The most translated of all modern Welsh-language poets, and author of over twenty books of poetry, Menna Elfyn has produced yet another collection which demands respect, a bilingual Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation under the astute eyes of translators such as Gillian Clarke, Elin ap Hywel and Joseph P. Clancy. This collation appropriately opens with a quotation from Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus:
Murmur to the quiet earth: I flow,
Voice to the running water: I exist.
The softness of Rilke’s words murmurs a rhythm and tone before we even become aware of the unguarded and instinctive manner through which each poem of Elfyn’s will meander. With the unbreakable nature of running water, this collection discerns each pulse of life from the sidelines; it is a river of work that gives way to a stream of pocketed consciousness at the same time as evolving towards a slow acceptance of its inescapable role in such a vista.
At first, it considers loss, gently reeling us towards the water’s edge where we see there will be tragedy in this collection, for there already has been. ‘Ghazal: Loss’ acquaints us with the candid touch of what is to come, then two more opening poems that vestige life’s sequences. In ‘Babysitting in the Crematorium’, the line ‘We were born for the smoke’, embeds the speaker’s unsettled understanding of the unpredictable span before her, and ‘How eternal each second when minding a child’ displays the impossibility of enveloping a moment, the speaker considering the literal body of the vast question, but only ever observing.
There is a stillness to this collection, but an energy in its interminable discovery as ‘Growth Rings’, with the pun of its very title, calls us into its curiosity and therefore closer to the inevitability of change. Elfyn either means this or the ringing of the bell that ends what become pleasant memories and, later on, nostalgia itself. Here, we can also bear witness to the literal rings of a tree’s divided age, the tragic consequences upon nature whilst failing under nurture of the world’s hand:
See how kids bloom
in the care of trees.
Out of brown and green
grow metaphors:
This illustrates the sad paradox of humans becoming less of themselves with every transition; ‘Out of a cut comes blood’ revealing impending reality as the very danger of innocence. This poem, instead of running into the familiar sanctuary of green metaphor, more uniquely speaks from the roots about how the very imagination, using nature as its base, becomes, as the poem finitely states, ‘things to blunt/our razor minds against.’ Elfyn’s voice is one of experience.
This poem also leads to Elfyn’s preoccupation, as is Rilke’s, with the poetic process, reinforced by her direct acknowledgement of ’metaphors’ in poetry never too enwrapped in romantic disguise. ‘The Wasp Inspector’, too, brings home a murmuring of reality, life with its stings, ‘honey or hurt’ for a poet at work as she realises what we sometimes assume to be interference as life itself, the ‘melody’ pushing musical language to its limits.
The sound and fluidity of Elfyn’s poetry work hand in hand, and are most brought to light in ‘Birds of a feather’, exploring the alchemical transformation of writing upon what the addressee does as a ‘coroner/of wayward birds’ and ‘connoisseur of colour’, turning the tangible into a different kind of beautiful. The rhythm of the poem is as steady and plucked as the ‘anatomised’ bird, murmuring music to the ears.
The collection drifts through a trajectory of a well-travelled Welsh writer, but not in location as much as mental expansion. Back home to ‘The Cocklewoman’, we feel the true strength of Elfyn’s ability to tackle all scales of her craft, with a privacy captured as though we are eavesdropping on others’ memories. In this vein, the title poem ‘Murmurs’ brings to mind the importance of murmurs unheard, as the poet attempts to tap into each heartbeat to experience the weight behind such a muscle:
Poets live with beats,
consistently irregular;
lubb-dupp, its melody
carries a pitch that flows
through all the heartaches
and metre of the blood
This reinforces the Keatsian idea of no real self existing. Murmur is packed with metaphysical concepts but also allows space for us to create our own murmurings, a result of its subtlety that is neither tenuous nor cryptic.
Even upon entering the almost-epistolary sequence of Catrin Glyndwr’s tragic story from the captivity of The Tower of London, each poem specifically captures us with universal and astounding lines, such as, ‘I’m counting time/with strands of my children’s hair’. A public story becomes personal as its form draws each emotion to the vitriolic core until we feel the stone walls around us:
I mark the wall with blood
squeezed from my nail
bitten to the quick.
As contemporary readers, we appreciate this history as closely as an audience of the fifteenth century. Then, as the sequence continues to meander through the desperate and frightened tedium of ‘Birdsong’, to the dull hope of ‘Incident’, we find ourselves unquestionably related, as though this is as recent to us as the Gleision colliery tragedy of 2011, which Elfyn writes about just as convincingly in ‘The Gate’. There is a constant flow in Elfyn’s writing that, like ‘Shawl’, another poem of the Glyndwr sequence, absorbs the warmth of human essence, the comfort beneath and beyond danger and control. Towards the end, we sense the rhythm of the sequence tiring from the very energy of its wonder, and we feel enriched.
We expected a tragedy to this collection and, like the running water of Rilke’s words, we have watched it unfold, like the ‘small world’ becoming a bed sheet in Elfyn’s ‘Handkerchief Stories’ poem, to expose narratives that crawl beneath the skin. This collection, amidst its sour darkness, provides breaths of optimism as we work through the marvellous cloth, ‘stitch over stitch’, each murmur like a thread through the poems, giving space to the sound.
Drama radio gan Menna Elfyn
BBC Radio Cymru: Nos Sul, Tachwedd 25ain am 7.00 pm
Hirddydd Heddwch---drama yn seiliedig ar fywyd Bobby Sands.
Ail ddarllediad eto am 2.00 pm dydd Mawrth 27ain.
Dyma'r ail ddrama eleni - yn dilyn 'Colli Nabod' a ddarlledwyd yn ddiweddarach yn y flwyddyn.
"What a lovely event. Menna's poetry had me chuckling one minute and wanting to weep the next. Wonderful to have such moving poetry about Catrin Glyndwr too. One of history's many female characters whose crime in the eyes of her captors was being related to the wrong man. Diolch Menna x"
Menna Bonsels
Poet in the City invites you to
from 6.30pm on Thursday 8 November 2012
Waterstones bookshop, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9AU
The event itself will start promptly at 7pm
> cliciwch yma/uchod am fwy o wybodaeth
> click here/above for more information
[cliciwch i'w weld yn fwy / click to enlarge]
Menna Elfyn will be launching her new bilingual Welsh-English collection Murmur with a number of events this autumn. As well as several launches in Wales, she will also be giving two readings in London. The book is published by Bloodaxe on 27 September.
Murmur includes a sequence of poems about the last princess of Wales, Catrin Glyndwr, daughter of Owain Glyndwr, who was incarcerated with her children in the Tower of London for over two years until their mysterious death. Fittingly enough, mur-mur in Welsh also means wall-wall, so the book’s leitmotif is one that stresses the distance between words and worlds. Murmur is a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation.
“Her voice is gentle, even tender, but she is far from confining herself to the valleys and mines of her grandparents’ landscape… her points of reference lie far outside the Welsh tradition – to Emily Dickinson and Kurt Vonnegut… and her own travels extend to Cairo and Bucharest.”
- PBS judges on Menna Elfyn’s Murmur
Menna Elfyn is one of the foremost Welsh-language writers. As well as being an award-winning poet, she has published plays, libretti and children’s novels, and co-edited The Bloodaxe Book of Modern Welsh Poetry (2003) with John Rowlands.
Her books include two bilingual selections, Eucalyptus: Detholiad o Gerddi / Selected Poems 1978-1994 (Gomer Press, 1995), and Perfect Blemish: New & Selected Poems / Perffaith Nam: Dau Ddetholiad & Cherddi Newydd 1995-2007 (Bloodaxe Books, 2007). Her latest bilingual collection, Murmur (Bloodaxe Books, 2012), a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation.
When not travelling the world for readings and residencies, Menna Elfyn lives in Llandysul. She was Wales’s National Children’s Laureate in 2002, and is Creative Director in the School of Cultural Studies at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David. She is available for interview.
Editorial Notes:
• Murmur, by Menna Elfyn, is published by Bloodaxe Books on Thursday 27 September 2012, price £9.95 (paper).
• Bilingual edition, with English translations by leading Welsh poets: Elin ap Hywel, Joseph P. Clancy, Gillian Clarke, Damian Walford Davies and Paul Henry.
• For author/cover jpegs or interview requests, please call Christine Macgregor or Rebecca Hodkinson on 01434 240500 or e-mail publicity@bloodaxebooks.com.
• For full author biography, book information & video clip of Menna Elfyn reading, visit the title page at: www.bloodaxebooks.com.
• For further details on Menna Elfyn’s visits: www.mennaelfyn.co.uk
Autumn events for Murmur:
• 28 September: Launch 6pm for 6.30pm, Penrallt Bookshop, Machynlleth as part of ‘Culture Night’ (RSVP: penralltbooks@gmail.com or telephone 01654 700559)
• 20 October: Bloomsbury Festival Launch, London, London Welsh Centre (early evening event)
• 23 October: 7.45 Launch at University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter
• 1 November: 7pm, Dylan Thomas Festival, Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea
• 8 November: 6.30pm, Poet-in-the City: Waterstones, Covent Garden, London (www.poetinthecity.co.uk/poetry-events)
• 26 November: 7.30pm, Guest reader/Launch ‘Murmur’ Poems & Pints’, Queen’s Hotel, Carmarthen
• 13 December: 1pm, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
Hydref—Autumn events and launch of ‘Murmur’ Bloodaxe Books, 2012
27 Medi/Sept: Canolfan y Mileniwm Caerdydd – ‘Wales’ llyfr ar Gymru (IWA)
28 Medi/Sept: 6pm-6:30pm – Penrallt Bookshop, Machynlleth
1 Tach/Nov: 7pm – Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea
8 Tach/Nov: 6:30pm – Poet-in-the City: Waterstones, Covent Garden, London
26 Tach/Nov: 7:30pm – Guest reader/Launch ‘Murmur’ Poems & Pints’, Queen’s Hotel, Carmarthen
13 Rhag/Dec: 1pm – Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Cymru, Caerdydd
[cliciwch i'w weld yn fwy / click to enlarge]
Menna Elfyn (Swansea, 1951)
Galeseko Swansea herritik hurbil jaio zen Menna Elfyn 1951 urtean. Bere familiakideek gaelikoa hitzegiten zuten eta bere aita galeseko elizako artzain protestantea zen. Hizkuntza gaelikoan maila internazional batean proiekzio haundien duen idazlea dela esan daiteke. Poesiaz gain antzerkirako antzezlanak, irrati eta telebistarako adaptazio eta gidoiak naiz operarako eskuliburuak idatzi ditu.
Bere lanen artean Eucalyptus: Detholiad O Gerddi/Selected Poems 1978-1994 (1995), Cell Angel (1996), Cusan Dyn Dall/Blind Man’s Kiss (2001), Perfaith Bam / Perfect Blemish (2005) eta New Poems (2007) aurki ditzakegu. New Yorkeko Orkestra Filarmonikarako ere lan egin du The Garden of Light lanaren sormenean lagunduaz baita R S Thomas-i eskeinitako Hymn to a Welshman (Galesko gizon bati himnoa) lanaren sormenean ere. Bere bi eleberri gaztelaniara izan dira itzuliak: El ángel de la celda de 2002 eta Mancha Perfecta. Dituen zenbait poesia lan euskerara itzuli dira Metamorphoses aldizkarian.
Bibliografia
* 1976 - Mwyara, Gwasg Gomer
* 1978 - Stafelloedd Aros, Gwasg Gomer
* 1981 - Tro’r Haul Arno, Gwasg Gomer
* 1985 - Mynd Lawr i’r Nefoedd, Gwasg Gomer
* 1990 - Aderyn Bach Mewn Llaw, Gwasg Gomer
* 1995 - Eucalyptus, Gwasg Gomer
* 1996 - Cell Angel, Bloodaxe Books
* 2001 - Cusan Dyn Dall/ Blind Man’s Kiss, Bloodaxe Books
* 2005 - Perffaith Nam, Gwasg Gomer
* 2007 - Perffaith Nam. Perfect Blemish, Bloodaxe Books
* 2007 - Er dy fod, Gwasg Gomer (book for learners/learning a language)
cliciwch yma i weld mwy o luniau / click here to view more photos:
Cyfieithiadau o gerddi Menna Elfyn mewn Sbaeneg (o gylchgrawn yn Venezuela). [cliciwch i'w weld yn fwy]
Translation of Menna Elfyn poems in Spanish (from a Venezuelan Magazine). [click to enlarge]
Lluniau/Photos: Francoise Roy, Mexico
Cliciwch i agor y PDF / Click to open the PDF
poetry reading: with Menna Elfyn and Zoe Skoulding
27 March 2012 7.30pm
Terrace Café, Main Arts Building, Bangor University
darlleniad barddoniaeth: gyda Menna Elfyn a Zoe Skoulding
27 Mawrth 2012 7.30pm
Caffi Teras, Prif Adeilad y Celfyddydau, Prifysgol Bangor
Emma Geliot’s Blog:
emmageliot.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/a-forensic-poetry-iwan-balas-field-notes/
Y Drindod Dewi Sant / Trinity Saint David:
www.trinitysaintdavid.ac.uk/en/news/pressreleases/name,10300,en.html
© Pamela Petro
> (darllen mwy // read more here)
> (gweld fideo // view video here)
Erthygl - Fieldnotes - Article:Cliciwch yma i ddarllen erthygl am Arddangosfa
'Nodiadau Maes'
Iwan Bala & Menna Elfyn.
- Rhagfyr 2011. (BBC Cymru Wales)
Click here to read an article on Iwan Bala &
Menna Elfyn's 'Fieldnotes' Exhibition.
- December 2011. (BBC Cymru Wales)
Erthygl - ABC - Cultural - Article:Cliciwch yma i weld erthygl am Menna
o'r ABC Cultural - Rhagfyr 2011.
Click here to view an article on Menna
from ABC Cultural - December 2011.
Erthygl - WNO - Article:Cliciwch yma i weld erthygl gan Menna
o WNO Extra Monthly - Rhagfyr 2011 (PDF).
Click here to view the article by Menna
from WNO Extra Monthly - December 2011 (PDF).
- o'r chwith i 'r dde: Gerður Kristny (bardd o Ynys yr Ia / Iceland), Menna Elfyn, Pamela Petro (awdur o UDA/ USA).
Menna Elfyn, Gerður Kristny, Pamela Petro - Ty Newydd, Medi / September 2011.
Gwrando | Listen:
Reading India, Translating Wales - voices from Writers Chain poetry translation workshop-June 2011 by niapolly
Erthygl - India - Article:Cliciwch yma i weld erthygl am Menna yn India (PDF).
Click here to view an article on Menna in India (PDF).
Nos Iau, 7 Ebrill 2011
yn y Drwm, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru Aberystwyth
am 7 o’r gloch CROESO CYNNES I BAWB.
Gwerthfawrogir ateb os gwelwch yn dda erbyn Dydd Llun, 4 Ebrill 2011 i Nia Jenkins, 01559 363090 nia@gomer.co.uk
Gwasg Gomer, Llandysul, Ceredigion, SA44 4JL
Blessing Musariri and Ethel Kabwato are currently touring Wales following the launch of Sunflowers In Your Eyes, which has been edited by acclaimed Welsh author Menna Elfyn and published by north Wales-based publishers Cinnamon Press. (darllen mwy | read more)
(Ethel Kabwato Photograph © Emyr Young.)
Menna Elfyn ydw i, dwi’n fardd – I’m Menna Elfyn, I’m a poet.
(darllen mwy | read more)
One Nation Many Voices [View Images]
Fflur Dafydd, merch Menna Elfyn, yn derbyn Gwobr
(darllen mwy | read more)
The genesis of the Red Lady project is the cantata 'Y Dyn Unig', a new work by Andrew Powell and Menna Elfyn, commissioned by Craig Roberts and the Burry Port Town Band, and supported by a Steps to New Music award from the Arts Council of Wales. (Darllen mwy | Read more)