Love from Wales by Alexander Cordell
'Who made an ache under my rib?' Asks the poet on the first page of Love from Wales, and just what makes the Welsh a passionate race? This selection of poetry and prose on the theme of love by Welsh poet Tony Curtis and novelist Sian James offers some lively answers. Love from Wales features extracts from novels and short stories, as well as complete poems and letters, ranging from the eleventh century to the present. The book includes many translations from the original Welsh. We begin in the Spring section, with the shy, awkward adolescence of Dylan Thomas's 'Extraordinary Little Cough' and Dannie Abse's 'Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve', then move towards the full Summer love of Gillian Clarke's 'Choughs' who 'mate for life' and John Ormond's lovely poem to his wife, 'Design for a Quilt'. Then it's onward to Autumn where love ripens into Alun Richards's 'The Scandalous Thoughts of Elmyra Mouth'. Here we also find Caradoc Evans's sly tale of a farmer's son sent off to market to find a wife akin to 'A Heifer Without Blemish'. Finally, to Winter and Alun Lewis's poignant 'Post-script for Gweno' and R.S. Thomas's stern 'Like That', to finish with Vernon Watkin's moving 'Great Night Returning'. Other writers featured include: Jean Earle, Gwyn Thomas, David Lloyd George, Dafydd ap Gwilym, Richard Llewellyn, Edward Thomas, Emyr Humphreys, Jean Rhys, Idris Davies, John Tripp, Alexander Cordell, and many more.
Alun Lewis, (1915-1944), the remarkable poet and short story writer, died, aged 28, in Burma in the Second World War. Some critics see him as the last of the great Romantic poets, a twentieth century Keats. Others describe his poetry as the path from pre-war Yeats and Auden to post-war poets like Hughes and Gunn. In Wales there are those who think his greater versatility and finer intelligence place him above his contemporaries Dylan Thomas and R.S. Thomas. Born and brought up near Aberdare in south Wales, Lewis read history at Aberystwyth and Manchester. After a brief period teaching and despite pacifist inclinations, he enlisted in the Royal Engineers. He later joined the South Wales Borderers and was posted to India. Becoming a soldier had a stimulating effect on Lewis's writing: Raiders' Dawn, a collection of forty-seven poems, appeared in 1942 and early in 1943, The Last Inspection, a book of short stories, was published, both to considerable critical acclaim. Lewis died in an accident on active service in Burma in 1944. His second volume of poems, Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets, was published in 1945 and his Indian short stories, together with some letters, in In The Green Tree (1948).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781854110671 |
| ISBN 10 | 1854110675 |
| Title | Love from Wales |
| Author | Alexander Cordell |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Poetry Wales Press |
| Year published | 1995-02-23 |
| Number of pages | 176 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |