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Theme: Literature

Pennod 15 – Roc-an-Rôl a’r Arthur Cymreig-Ewropeaidd

Rock and Roll and the Welsh-European Arthur
This episode provides an opportunity for us to think about the relationship between Welsh literature and continental literature as we discuss the next step in the development of Arthurian legendry. What about those ‘native’ Welsh tales which were influenced by French literature? How do we perceive artistic creations which were constructed on traditional Welsh foundations but which are also indebted in a very obvious way to ‘foreign’ influences? We suggest that the history of rock and roll provides a useful comparison. And what are the differences between the old Welsh Arthurian world and this continental literature? Is this Welsh-European Arthur a lot closer to Hollywood’s version of the heroic king?

Be ydy compulsive yn Gymraeg?

Gwestai arbennig wrth i fam Bethan ymddangos ar y podlediad.

Beth ydy compulsive yn Gymraeg?

Byddwch yn ofalus wrth wrando ar e-lyfrau yn y car!

PROSIECT NEWYDD – AMLEN

NEW PROJECT ALERT Amlen is a new research and development project that will be concentrating on the Welsh Language Music Industry. We are looking for two enthusiastic young people* (aged 18-25) who are involved in Welsh Language Music and want to contribute to its thriving scene and to develop it further. This opportunity is available […]

Lleisiau Lleol – Cyfweliad efo Alys Conran

To launch Partneriaeth Ogwen’s new project – Lleisiau Lleol – in the Gŵyl Gwenllian 2023, local well renowned author Alys Conran sat down for a chat with Meleri Davies to discuss her two novels and how her “cynefin” has influenced her work.

Haf o Ddarllen | Summer of Reading

Looking for new books to read over the summer?

Available now from your local bookshop, Summer of Reading, a taste of the brilliant books from Wales out this summer.

Pick up your free copy from your local Bookshop.

Find your local Bookshop HERE.

IB3Y (Yn fyw o Stiwdio 2 Sain)

IB3Y

Fersiwn byw o’r sengl ddiweddaraf yn fyw o Stiwdio 2, Stiwdio Sain. 29/04/23

Diolch i Stiwdio Sain am gael defnyddio’r stafell!

Pennod 14 – O’r Apocalyps Arthuraidd i Fashion Casualties: Hanes Cryno Cad Gamlan

From the Arthurian Apocalypse to Fashion Casualties:
A Brief History of the Battle of Camlan

We go after a slightly different subject this time, one which cropped up during the past episodes while discussing early Welsh Arthurian literature.
In this episode we trace literary references to the Battle of Camlan through centuries of Welsh literature.
‘Cad Gamlan’ was the famous leader’s last big battle, a slaughter which destroyed Arthur’s realm and golden age. We suggest that traditions concerning this ‘Arthurian Apocalypse’ are a way of structuring all of the great Arthurian story, just as apocalyptical mediations in the Bible are a way of structuring Christian thought in general. It is perhaps one of the more intense aspects of the Welsh literary tradition, but there is also humour here as well, as you’ll hear.

About the Author: Rae Howells

Rae Howells is a poet, journalist, academic and lavender farmer from Swansea. She’s won both the Welsh International and Rialto Nature and Place poetry competitions. Her work has featured in a wide range of journals including Magma, The Rialto, Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Acumen, Envoi, Poetry Ireland, Black Bough, Marble and The Cardiff Review, as well as in the Poetry Business anthology, The Result is What You See Today and Arachne Press’s anthology A470. Howells’s pamphlet ‘Bloom and Bones’, co-authored with Jean James, was published by the Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2021. The language of bees is her first full collection.

Pennod 13 – Ennill Olwen

Winning Olwen

We finishing discussing the tale ‘Culhwch and Olwen’ in this episode, starting with the six heroes whom Arthur choses to help Culhwch find the daughter of Ysbaddaden Chief of Giants. (And thus, along with the would-be bridegroom himself, here’s a medieval Welsh version of the ‘Seven Samauri’ or ‘The Magnificent Seven’!) Olwen appears finally – and we get a striking and memorable description of her – and then the seven must face the Chief of Giants himself. And they have to fulfil a great number of various tasks – each one an adventure in itself – before Culhwch can marry Olwen, and he’ll have to turn to Arthur and his heroes for more help in order to accomplish it all. So numerous adventures are to be had here, but also grotesque humour and deep meditations on the relationship between people and the world of nature.

About the Author: Zoë Skoulding

Zoë Skoulding is Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Bangor University. Her collections of poetry (published by Seren Books) include The Mirror Trade (2004); Remains of a Future City (2008), shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year; The Museum of Disappearing Sounds (2013), shortlisted for Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry; and Footnotes to Water (2019), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and won the Wales Book of the Year Poetry Award 2020. In 2020 she also published The Celestial Set-Up (Oystercatcher) and A Revolutionary Calendar (Shearsman). Her critical work includes two monographs, Contemporary Women’s Poetry and Urban Space: Experimental Cities (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and Poetry & Listening: The Noise of Lyric (Liverpool University Press, 2020). She received the Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors in 2018 for her body of work in poetry and is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

Nia Morais yw’r Bardd Plant Cymru nesaf!

Nia Morais is the next Bardd Plant Cymru

A poet who encourages children to “play with the Welsh language” and whose “passion for identity and encouraging others to respect their self-image is infectious” is the next to take on this prestigious role.

About the Author: Sophie Anderson

Sophie Anderson was born in Swansea and has always been inspired by the stories of her Welsh and Slavic ancestors. Across her bestselling novels The House with Chicken Legs, The Girl Who Speaks Bear, The Castle of Tangled Magic, and The Thief Who Sang Storms, Sophie has won many awards, including the Independent Bookshop Book of the Year Award and the Wales Book of the Year, and has been twice shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

About the Author: P.G Bell

P.G. Bell is a native of south Wales, where he was raised on a diet of Greek mythology, ghost stories and Doctor Who. He’s had all sorts of jobs over the years, from lifeguard to rollercoaster operator, but all he ever really wanted to do is write stories for a living. And now he does! His bestselling children’s novel, The Train to Impossible Places, was nominated for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the Branford Boaze Award and was selected for the Summer Reading Challenge 2019. He lives in Cardiff with his wife Anna and their two children.

About the Author: Darren Chetty

Darren Chetty was born in Swansea and currently lives in London. He is a lecturer at University College, London. He taught in primary schools for 20 years. In 2022, he co-edited Welsh (Plural): Essays on the Future of Wales (Repeater) and a special issue of Wasafiri entitled ‘Reimaging Education’. He is a contributor to the bestselling book, The Good Immigrant (Unbound). Darren is co-author of What Is Masculinity? Why Does It Matter? And Other Big Questions (Wayland) and How To Disagree: Negotiating Difference in a Divided World (Quarto) and co-editor of Critical Philosophy of Race and Education (Routledge). Darren writes, with Karen Sands O’Connor, a regular column for Books for Keeps examining racially minorised characters in children’s literature, entitled Beyond the Secret Garden.

About the Author: Nicola Davies

Nicola Davies is the author of more than 80 books for children and young people, including poetry, non-fiction, picture books and novels. Her work has been published in more than 10 languages and won awards in the UK, US, Europe and Asia. In addition to many books about the natural world, Nicola has written about disability, grief, human migration and children’s rights. Her picture books The King of the Sky (with Laura Carlin) and The Day War Came (with Rebecca Cobb) are endorsed by Amnesty UK; the latter sparked an online campaign, ‘3000 chairs’, in support of unaccompanied child refugees. Her recent YA novel The Song that Sings Us has been nominated for the Yoto Carnegie Award and her poetry collection Choose Love (with Petr Horáček) is helping to raise funds for the refugee charity of the same name and has been shortlisted for the CLiPPA Poetry Award 2023.

About the Author: Claire Fayers

Claire Fayers is an award-winning children’s author and champion of Welsh stories. Her own book of Welsh fairy tales, myths and legends was shortlisted for the Tir na n-Og Award and nominated for the Carnegie medal. Her next book, Tapper Watson and the Quest for the Nemo Machine, will be launching from Firefly Press in late 2023.

About the Author: Hanan Issa

Hanan Issa is a Welsh-Iraqi poet, filmmaker and artist. Her publications include her poetry collection My Body Can House Two Hearts and Welsh Plural: Essays on the Future of Wales. Her winning monologue With Her Back Straight was performed at the Bush Theatre as part of the Hijabi Monologues. She is the current National Poet of Wales and 2022-23 Hay International Fellow.

About the Author: Rhian Tracey

Rhian Tracey was born in Swansea and grew up on the Welsh borders. She got her first publishing deal at 26. Rhian teaches several days a week in an SEN department, working with students who have dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism, ADD and other additional learning needs. She also volunteers with Medical Detection Dogs, helping to train puppies who will go on to be assistance dogs. Rhian’s debut middle grade book, I, Spy: a Bletchley Park mystery, was published in March 2023.

About the Author: Alex Wharton

Alex Wharton is an award-winning writer and performer of poetry for adults and children. His first book of poetry for children, Daydreams and Jellybeans, was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year award 2022, The North Somerset Teacher’s Book Awards, The Laugh Out Loud Book Awards and was named as a National Poetry Day Recommended Read. In 2021 Alex was commissioned by Hay Festival to create a poem with primary students to be read to Her Royal Highness, Queen Consort at a ceremony held in Hay-On-Wye. Alex’s second and third collections of poetry, Poems for Brilliant Brains and Red Sky at Night: A Poet’s Delight will be published with Firefly Press in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

About the Author: Eloise Williams

Eloise Williams was the inaugural Children’s Laureate Wales 2019–2021. She has published four books for young people: Elen’s Island, Gaslight, Seaglass and Wilde. In 2019, Seaglass was shortlisted for the prestigious Tir na n-Og awards.

About the Author: Matt Brown

Matt Brown is a broadcaster who has presented some of the UK’s most popular TV programmes, as well as radio shows on Capital, Heart and Magic. He is also the award-winning author of two children’s book series: Compton Valance and Dreary Inkling School.

Pennod 12 – Arthur y Barbwr

Arthur the Barber

As ‘Culhwch and Olwen’ is such a big tale and such an important one, we’ve devoted two entire episodes to discussing it. We explain in this this episode why this medieval story is so interesting and why this literary text is so interesting. Here’s an opportunity to see the original Welsh Arthur at his best, in the middle of the feats and excess of a court full of wondrous characters. But here also is a story about Culhwch’s attempt to find and marry Olwen, and a traditional folk tale about a hero wedding the giant’s daughter serves that serves as a framework for a great many adventures.
This tale is graced by an abundance of Arthurian characters, including some who will be familiar to followers of ‘Yr Hen Iaith’ (such as the gatekeeper Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr, for example, dubbed ‘Friend of the Pod’ by Richard Wyn Jones). And, by the way, why does Culhwch go to Arthur in order to have his hair cut?

About the Author: Matt Rowland Hill

Matt Rowland Hill was born in 1984 in Pontypridd, south Wales, and grew up in Wales and England. He now lives in London, and Original Sins is his first book.