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Gwyn Thomas’ Blaenau Ffestiniog

‘Avalon, I know, must be something like this.’ Gwyn Thomas

A bilingual book of newly commissioned poems by the National Poet of Wales, Gwyn Thomas.  Illustrated with striking full–colour landscape photographs of Gwyn Thomas’s native area, Blaenau Ffestiniog, by talented landscape photographer Jeremy Moore.

Blaenau Ffestiniog has inspired many writers and singers but none more so than Gwyn Thomas.  In this splendid book, the National Poet of Wales celebrates the place he described as ‘a bracelet of a town on the bone of rock…’ and pays tribute to those people who worked that rock to shape the Blaenau we know today.

The combination of wild nature and man’s work in the landscape drew the well-known photographer Jeremy Moore to Blaenau Ffestiniog. He was eager to document the effect of the slate-quarrying industry on one of Snowdonia’s most beautiful areas.  In this stunning volume, his striking photographs form a perfect complement to Gwyn Thomas’s magical poems.

Gwyn Thomas is Emeritus Professor of Welsh at the University of Wales, Bangor.  Born in 1936 and raised in Blaenau Ffestiniog, he was educated at Ysgol Sir Ffestiniog, University of Wales, Bangor and Jesus College, Oxford.  He has published 16 volumes of poetry and was appointed the National Poet of Wales in 2006. During his term as National Poet, he is frequently reading and discussing his work in public, as well as writing poems for significant national events and occasions.

Gwyn will be appearing at Academi’s BayLit Festival in his role as National Poet of Wales, alongside Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, debating what it is to be an official bard and how national identity plays its part in that role. This lively and unique discussion will be chaired by a poet who knows the subject only too well, the first National Poet of Wales, Gwyneth Lewis and will take place at 7:30pm on Friday 20th of April, in Function Room 1, Wales Millenium Centre, Cardiff.

Published by Gomer Press, Llandysul, Ceredigion SA44 4JL Wales.  Tel: 01559 362371;  Fax: 01559 363758; gwasg@gomer.co.uk;  www.gomer.co.uk.

Sales and distribution: Welsh Books Council, The Distribution Centre, Glanyrafon Enterprise Park, Llanbadarn Fawr, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3AQ. Tel: 01970 624455;  Fax: 01970 625506;  Email: distribution.centre@wbc.org.uk.
Also available from: Gardners, Bertrams and directly from Gomer Press.