Menna Elfyn is the best-known, most travelled and most translated of all Welsh-language poets until now writing exclusively in Welsh. Her work has been translated into English and other languages by leading poets from around the world.
Following many years of campaigning, Menna Elfyn is moving towards her own sense of resolution as the Welsh language is now accepted and respected as an official language in Wales. In this hybrid book for the first time she has translated or written many of the original poems in English, now describing herself as a proud bilingual, while she remains a Welsh language poet. Other poems in the book are translated by Emma Baines, Gillian Clarke, Robert Minhinnick and R.S. Thomas.
The poems in Parch offer a voice to those whose liberty or dignity have been undermined, seeking religious, linguistic and cultural tolerance for all, and not shying away from the effects of (in)humanity on our environment, histories and lives.
In Welsh, parch (the ch is guttural) simply means respect. Menna Elfyns collection explores the many ways in which respect can be expressed, as well as how our world can so often feel parched of simple kindnesses.
Menna Elfyn shares Herta Müllers belief that holding ones own language up to the eyes of another leads to a solid relationship, a relaxed kind of love. This distils the essence of Parch: respect as refuge; the triumph of compassion over conflict.
Menna Elfyn has published five dual-language books of poetry with Bloodaxe. Her 2007 retrospective Perfect Blemish: New & Selected Poems was followed by two further Welsh-English collections, Murmur (2012), a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation; and Bondo (2017). Parch is Menna Elfyns sixth poetry book from Bloodaxe, and is her first book to include poems written direct into English and in her own translation.
Recenzijas
Menna Elfyn is a major figure in contemporary Welsh poetry, writing exclusively in Welsh. A true internationalist, her work has been translated into over eighteen languages. Her most recent bilingual collections in Welsh and English are published by Bloodaxe. Elfyn writes about the intimate and every day, the natural world and about womens experiences, always able to transform her awareness of the small, and the beautiful, to the affective and often, then, the political. Her voice is challenging and compassionate by turn, unafraid of joy, and full of the energies of community, offering through the power of language, truth, consolation, and possibility. -- Deryn Rees-Jones * Co-judge of the Society of Authors' Cholmondeley Awards 2022 * Elfyn is a poet of healingboth compassionate and celebratory. Like a soul doctor she questions and probes, like St Teresa she endures the darkness, but in the end she sings a song which affirms that flawed humanity is indeed perfectible. -- Katie Gramich * Planet * If there is a poet addressing important issues about language today, its Menna Elfyn in her latest collection of poems, Bondo (Welsh for eaves). Theres no tub-thumping in the book though; the poems are a quiet call for the reconciliation of diversity, a reminder that cultural nuances are what make life meaningful. -- Carla Manfredino * Wales Arts Review *
Menna Elfyn is one of the foremost Welsh-language writers. As well as being an award-winning poet, she has published plays, libretti and childrens novels, and co-edited The Bloodaxe Book of Modern Welsh Poetry (2003) with John Rowlands.
Her books include two bilingual selections, Eucalyptus: Detholiad o Gerddi / Selected Poems 1978-1994 (Gomer Press, 1995), and Perfect Blemish: New & Selected Poems / Perffaith Nam: Dau Ddetholiad & Cherddi Newydd 1995-2007 (Bloodaxe Books, 2007), a Welsh-only selection Merch Perygl: Cerddi 1976-2011 (Gomer Press, 2011), and two later bilingual collections from Bloodaxe, Murmur (2012), a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation, and Bondo (2017). Parch (2025) is Menna Elfyns sixth poetry book from Bloodaxe. For the first time in this collection, she has written many of the poems direct into English, and translated some of them herself.
Optimist Absoliwt: Cofiant Eluned Phillips, her biography of the poet Eluned Phillips, was published (in Welsh) in 2016, and Cwsg: am dro yn ōl, a book about sleep illustrated by Sarah Williams, in 2019, both from Gomer Press. Her most recent Welsh language collection, Tosturi (Mercy), with illustrations by Meinir Mathias (Cyhoeddiadau Barddas, 2022), was shortlisted for the 2023 Welsh-language Wales Book of the Year Poetry Award.
When not travelling the world for readings and residencies, she lives in Carmarthen. She was Waless National Childrens Laureate in 2002, and was made President of Wales PEN Cymru in 2014. She was, until 2016, Creative Director in the School of Cultural Studies at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David; she is also Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing. She won a Cholmondeley Award in 2022, a prize which recognises a poet's body of work.
