Wild Words at the Grave of Dafydd ap Gwilym

Since the age of seventeen, Giles Watson has been fascinated by the work of the fourteenth century Welsh poet, Dafydd ap Gwilym, and has previously published modern English paraphrases of his work. At the end of an eighteen year stay in the United Kingdom, he took a trip from his home in rural Oxfordshire to Dafydd's burial place at Ystrad Fflur in Ceredigion. The title poem in this collection is the result of his vigil at the yew tree that marks the poet's grave: a celebration of the life, loves and dazzling imagination of Dafydd ap Gwilym. Mischievously combining mediaeval and modern styles and idioms, 'Wild Words' and its four companion poems imagine themselves back into the mind of the poet as he considers his love and longing for the natural world, the constraints placed upon him by patrons, and the agonies and dilemmas of being in love with a woman with an abusive husband.