Author Description

One of the most important writers of twentieth-century Wales, and a master of the short-story form, Glyn Jones regarded himself as primarily a poet. During a lifetime's devotion to his craft, he wrote poems of exquisite subtlety and great power about the places and people which meant most to him. Many are set in Merthyr Tydfil, where he was born and brought up, in Cardiff, where he was for many years a teacher, and in rural Carmarthenshire, where his father's people had their roots. This volume gathers all Glyn Jones's previously published poems, together with a number which are published here for the first time. They include the complete text of `Seven Keys to Shaderdom', a long, complex poem on which he worked during his last years, and in which he found some remarkable, sometimes disturbing things to say about the lot of the artist (whether writer or painter) in Wales today. The editor, Meic Stephens, has provided notes on the provenance of the poems and thrown light on many of the allusions and uncommon words of which the poet was so fond. His chronology of the writer's life and work, and valuable introduction by Mercer Simpson, are designed to help the student, teacher and general reader to a fuller appreciation of these fine poems.