Festival celebrates great poets

Cousins and poets R Williams Parry and TH Parry-Williams

The lives of two prominent Welsh poets has been celebrated in a festival of walks and talks.

The TH Parry-Williams and R Williams Parry Festival was held in the Nantlle Valley, the area that inspired the poetic cousins, both of whose works are staples of Welsh literary education.

Co-host of one of the walks, Iwan Llwyd, said: "I used to study their work at school and TH Parry Williams in particular had a lot of influence on the way I started to write."

Like many notable Welsh language poets of this area, they were both brought up in quarrying communities - Rhyd Ddu and Talysarn - where the culture and traditions had a great influence on their writing.

They were also both university lecturers, TH Parry-Williams at Aberystwyth and R Williams Parry at Bangor.

"But they were both quite different," said chaired bard Iwan. "Williams Parry was more of a romantic poet, where as Parry-Williams' work was harder, more cynical about subjects such as religion.

"He was also a scientist which makes his work more interesting. In each of his poems, like any scientist, he can see one side of a feeling, but somewhere in the middle of the poem, comes to see the other side, too.

"In one of his most famous works, Hon, he's disheartened with Wales in the beginning - 'Beth yw'r ots gennyf i am Gymru?' (What do I care about Wales?). But then he returns home to Rhyd Ddu and he feels Wales getting hold of him again."

Another element to Parry-Williams' life which draws Iwan Llwyd is his journeys to South America, and so his poetry reflects more than life in rural north Wales.

"I've been lucky enough to go over there to write and read poetry too and I feel his presence whenever I go," he said.

Llyn Dywarchen near Rhyd Ddu in the Nantlle Valley

R Williams Parry became known as Bardd yr Haf (the summer poet), after winning the chair in the 1910 National Eisteddfod with his poem Yr Haf.

This was during his romantic period, before he spent two years in army camps during World War I.

While there he wrote one of his most famous collections of englynion (poems in strict Welsh verse) in memory of his friend and fellow poet Hedd Wyn, who posthumously won the chair at the 1917 National Eisteddfod after dying on the battlefield.

The idea behind the festival was not only to discuss the poets' work, but also see what inspired them.

"The quarries, lakes, mountains - all those things are all important in both poets' work," said Iwan, who was co-hosting a walk through a landscape which would have been familiar to TH Parry-Williams.

Twm Elias of Plas Tan-y-Bwlch led the walk, taking the path from Snowdonia National Park's car park up towards Snowdon. The route passed the quarries and farms which would have given work to the majority of the local population in the early 20th century.

"The open views of the mountainous area were totally intrinsic in inspiring their work," said Twm.