Revisiting the wellspring

A new poetry collection by Menna Elfyn presents a ‘whimsical dream’ of harmony between nations, writes Jenny White

- 

LET the World’s People Sing, a new anthology of poems by Menna Elfyn, features 31 poems originally written in Welsh, alongside English and Arabic translations.

‘The book is billed as “a clarion call for people of all languages to respect their neighbours’ ‘mother tongue’ with a whimsical dream of people learning one another's language in order to reach harmony between nations’.

An award-winning bilingual poet and playwright whose 15 collections in Welsh and English have achieved worldwide acclaim, Elfyn is president of Wales PEN Cymru and professor emerita of Poetry at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. She was made Welsh Children’s Poet Laureate in 2002.

The new collection features poems drawn from her previous anthologies, including a cycle of poems about Catrin Glyndwr, the daughter of Welsh hero Owain Glyndwr, two lines of which adorn the Catrin Glyndwr memorial opposite Canon Street Station in London.

“I wrote this cycle on the cusp of the Iraq War,’ says Elfyn, a Western Mail columnist. “It was meant to be about women or family associated with rebels being incarcerated, so it was a peace initiative as well, in a way.”