Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation

This wide-ranging, comprehensive anthology will be a revelation for most readers, dispelling romantic images of bards, druids and Celtic twilight mists. This poetry is full of vitality, combining old craftsmanship and daring innovation, humour and angst, the oral and the literary.

Menna Elfyn is a poet and playwright who writes with passion of the Welsh language and identity. She has published eight collections and three childrenís novels in Welsh. Her poetry is now available in two bilingual selections, Eucalyptus: Detholiad o Gerddi / Selected Poems 1978-1994 from Gomer and Perfect Blemish: New & Selected Poems / Perffaith Nam: Dau Ddetholiad & Cherddi Newydd 1995-2007 from Bloodaxe. Her Welsh originals in this book have facing English translations by Elin ap Hywel, Joseph Clancy, Gillian Clarke, Tony Conran, Nigel Jenkins and Robert Minhinnick. When not travelling the world for readings and residencies, she lives in Llandysul. She was Walesís National Childrenís Laureate in 2002.

John Rowlands is professor of Welsh at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. A widely-published novelist and literary critic, he is general editor of the series Y Meddwl a'r Dychmyg Cymreig for the University of Wales press, and previously edited Llais Llyfrau and Taliesin.