Encyclopaedia

BARDD GWLAD (Country poet)

A poet who celebrates locality and community, recording noteworthy and possibly humorous incidents as well as such occasions as births, marriages and deaths. With little or no higher education, such poets often use the strict metres, communicating their poems at social events, in papurau bro and on gravestones, in the form of commemorative englynion. The Blaenannerch (Aberporth) farmer, Dic Jones (1934-), is one of the best-known contemporary beirdd gwlad. The Gower folk poet Cyril Gwynn (1897-1988), author of The Gower Yarns of Cyril Gwynn (1976), is a comparatively rare example of a bardd gwlad who wrote in English.