Hedd Wyn

Merilang Press is about to publish a collection of all known poems of Hedd Wyn, Ellis Evans, of Yr Ysgwrn in Trawsfynydd. He is famous as the Bardd y Gadair Ddu because he was killed in 1917 just a few weeks before his poem won the chair at the National Eiteddfod.
This project has been a lot of work as, not being a native speaker, I had to enlist the help of a friend to proof read the poems and then incorporate all her corrections into the formatted version. Fortunately my friend is not only a native speaker but also actually likes proof-reading.
A strange thing occured yesterday. I had been busy with other matters and then returned to computer to add the final pictures to the Hedd Wyn file and turned on the radio as I sat down. There was a poetry programme with poets reading their choice of poems by dead authors. One reader had just finished as I started to fix my file and the next poet announced, 'I am going to read a poem by Hedd Wyn.' And proceded to read Y Blotyn Du {The Black Spot] first in Welsh and then in translation. One really would not expect to hear on radio 4 at any time about a poet who wrote only in Welsh but for it to come on air just as I was putting finshing touches to his book is downright weird. Talk about coincidence!

Latest news

Firstly Andrew McIntyre's book is doing well in the USA. You can check it out on my site http://www.merilang.co.uk/shop and click his name.

I have been lying low as I had much trouble from arthritic knees and also was snowed in for a lot of the winter. However, having now received, courtest NHS, a lovely knew knee joint, I am getting busy again. To follow up please see the site above.
Daffni

The newest news from Merilang Press is the appearance of Andrew McIntyre's book of short stories, The Short, the Long and the Tall. It is now available from Amazon both UK and USA and also signed from the author's website. For details go here http://www.merilang.co.uk/shop/books/andrew.htm and click on the picture of Andrew to go to his site.

Before going on th other matters, I'll just try to upload a picture from the story now. Fingers crossed.

I Lift My Eyes To The Hill

I lift my eyes to the hills,

from whence comes no help

from gods to temper the world’s ills.

And yet, although I see no saviour king

or holy angels,

there is something in those hills,

in this austere land, that consoles

and speaks of eternity,

something, I think, that comes from souls

of those who lived and died

and signed the landscape with their toil,

a signature of boundary walls

strung like scars across the slopes

of mountains almost old as time.

They built their hafods and their hendres,

stern faced chapels, endless drystone walls.

And men in whom the same blood runs

build still, build again the same walls

with the same stones when at last,

centuries having wreaked revenge,

the rocks slip sidelong and fall,

leaving gaping holes

where sheep flow, an undulating stream,

to pastures new .

They too have a patient and enduring

pattern of continuity that seems inbuilt;

Ewes teach lambs the lie of the land.

Generation after generation of sheep

have roamed among these rocks,

preserving a racial memory,

a living ancestry of flocks.

Perhaps there is something

Of that in me, a legacy willed

unknowingly by my Gran

who was London Welsh

and never saw these hills.

My newest children's story

I have finished my children's story about Dovey and his adventures after he was bought in the market.
In fact he lives with me at Bodyfuddau because the farmer who bought him didn't have the patience to deal with his over enthusiastic nature. The story is the alternative ending. It has lots of illustrations.
Here is one from the middle of the book.

For some reason this programme is refusing to upload pictures. I shall have to consult my expert advisor.
August 20rg
It did eventually upload the picture, I see. But I have decided the story ends too abruptly and needs a sequel so I intend to write the sequesl and then put both with several other dog stories into a book. This time i shall not be so ambitious as to add a picture opposite every page. So I'll have to do a lot of editing on the illustration side, use only the most appropriate for story one, maybe adapt some for the sequel and also draw several for the other stories. That should keep me busy for a while.

Hello anyone who is out there.
I have not had a lot of time for keeping blogs up to date, but things have been happening.
Merilang Press will soon be publishing a new revised version of David Gardiner's Rainbow Man, which has been out of print for a while. It has some really excellent stories in from this talented writer.