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Today I started thinking about nature.

 Nature often plays a part in my poetry, often in snippets, one reason for this could be that I see nature in snippets around me. A weed growing from between paving slabs, moss growing on the side of a decorative rock, a badger dead at the side of the road. I live in the biggest town in North Wales - not quite a country bumpkin, not quite a girl from the city - so today I'm looking at how I relate to that.


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Englynion series: Cardiff

Cardiff

Take your time, enjoy it here.

Castle whispers in your ear.

Old meets new, it's any year

This is an Englyn Milwr, the rhyme scheme is a,a,a or monorhyme (which is when all end rhymes are the same) and each line contains 7 syllables (that is the tricky bit).  This type of Englyn was popularized in the first world war and is also known as the Soldiers Englyn. The content is normally used to either praise or mock a person or as a declaration on love. 

Here I use the Englyn to appraise Cardiff. I spent yesterday wandering around the city, something that I don't get to do often. I particularly like the clash of the old and new. On the edge of the city is Cardiff Castle,which blends with the horizon beyond the city and out across Bute park. In the middle is a labyrinth of side alleys, arcades, shops, streets and people and an eclectic mix of high end shops, high street regulars, independent and charity shops.  There are three theaters, St. David's Hall, the Royal Welsh and the universities. It's a small city but one which seems open to younger generations, as if waiting for people to come and put their mark across it. It also stretches out towards the bay but I haven't been there for a while. Whenever I venture to the capital I feel a sense of 'welshness' that bordering on a hallmark card. 

Englynion series: Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus i pawb: Happy Sant David's Day everyone.

Sporting my spiffy Welsh Ladies Hat

 I love Wales. My mother is not from Wales, and I'm from the north. At times I struggle with my Welshness, but it is unignorable. There is an acceptance here for the creative which I haven't witnessed elsewhere (as the second photograph describes). Possibilities open up here, creative minds stumble upon each other in alleyways. Half of the people in the street are writers, the other half are musicians.

Throughout March I will be posting a series of Englynion (which are the British / Welsh equivalent of the haiku). I will discuss all things Cymru I have come to love and hate.


For now however I will leave you with the first Englyn I wrote,        inspired by a brilliant poet and tutor Andrew Taylor and                 published in Erbacce's 2012 summer issue.


 This is the poem that began my acceptance of and passion for English language Welsh poetry, a discovery I am grateful to for revolutionising my voice in poetry and leading me down the garden path.

I'm not nearly as Welsh as an Englyn,

Nor it's cynhanedd.

Mae hen wlad fy nhadau, Lloegr,

but I sing, yr ddraig goch, within.

This is a very rough Englyn, styled between Robert Davies'  the Penfyr. I will also be trying different styles including the milwr, crych and lleddfbroest.

Trans: 

   I'm not nearly as Welsh as an Englyn

 Nor it's cynhanedd 

(essentially it's harmony, but more to come of this)

    The land of my fathers, England, 

    but I sing, the red dragon, within.