National Poet Named in Wales
CARDIFF - Gwyneth Lewis, who wrote the inscription at the front of the Wales Millennium Centre, has been named the country's first national poet. She will be inaugurated in her role at the Hay Literature Festival.
Lewis described her new role as an “honour” and said she wanted to use it to connect with areas of life which are not traditionally poetic. She said she will be paid just a “nominal” amount in the role which will make her a Welsh cultural ambassador. “It's a huge privilege to be representing poetry in Wales, where we have a poetic tradition stretching back to the Six Century and fully present in the Twenty-First.”
While Wales has a long poetic tradition largely centred around the chairing and crowning of poets at the National Eisteddfod, her role will be the first to serve Wales nationally and through both languages. “I think poetry is more useful than just being poetry, it teaches a lot about how to be creative in life.”
The exact nature of her role as national poet has still to be defined, although she will not, like England's poet laureate, be required to write verse for specific formal occasions. She said she will be “inspired” in what she writes.
Lewis said it had been a remarkable year, particularly because of her words “In these stones horizons sing” written large on Wales Millennium Centre, the landmark new arts centre dominating Cardiff Bay. “I find it quite shocking to see them so large _ I'm still not used to it,” she said.
She has written six books of poetry in Welsh and English, and two non_fiction works. Her first Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book on Depression dealt with the writer's emergence from a bout of depression. Her second non_fiction work Two in a Boat: A Marital Voyage about the sea journey she undertook with the aid of a £75,000 fellowship is to be published in London and Cardiff later in the month.
Lewis and her husband Leighton Davies had to leave their boat in North Africa and return to Britain for treatment when he was diagnosed with lymphoma. His illness is still in remission.
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