Dal i Fod

Dal i Fod

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A life lived intensely, running the gamut of human emotions, emerges from forty years’ work by one of the most remarkable poetic talents of modern Wales. Since first bursting on to the literary scene in 1980, aged 18, Elin ap Hywel has continued to hone her rare poetic gift and pursue her clear-eyed analysis of the human, and above all the female, condition. Whether responding to Welsh legends or to other cultures, to the past or to contemporary events, to relationships or solitude, she never ceases to challenge, to dissect weaknesses, to question the status quo. There is sensuality in these poems, and passion too, but also sharp grief yielding to gentle melancholy and acceptance. Dal i Fod is only her second collection, for she has never rushed to publish. It brings together work from her astonishingly mature first publication, Pethau Brau (1982), up to her all too few more recent poems. There will be no more, for dementia has cruelly robbed her of her extraordinary gift for words. Knowledge of her condition adds an uncomfortably prophetic dimension to the poems in this valedictory volume which commemorates and above all celebrates a unique, unforgettable talent.

Dal i Fod is shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year Awards 2021.

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'This collection has a permanence that cannot be erased. The oeuvre of a poet who is fully aware of the power of words and the place of the poet in the world.'

Iestyn Tyne, O’r Pedwar Gwynt