As I said, my only reason for introducing an outsider into this discussion
was that there was no Welsh person on the list to put their point of view.
This is not really a private forum since all our postings are archived and
available for anyone on the Net who's interested. Thanks for the
congratulations.
Best wishes
-----Original Message-----
From: david.bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 13 February 2001 09:01
Subject: Not about Wales
>Matthew
>
>Congratulations on your book etc. Really this all should go back-channel
but
>as things are, unfortunately: I cannot say I am enamoured on your
>introducing extraneous, uninterrogable third parties into a list debate. I
>would also like to point out in no uncertain terms that as a member of the
>working-classes you so patronisingly approve of I take extreme exception to
>middle-class professionals telling me what I can and cannot think. I would
>also like to remind you and whoever else you seek succour from that the
>'British Empire' was precisely that and more: a racket run for the benefit
>of the middle-classes of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, England and elsewhere,
>for example the Eastern Seaboard of the States or Argentinian Jockey Clubs,
>not an exclusively English preserve, as can be evidenced in the numbers of
>West Indians who took Welsh surnames from plantation overseers.
>
>Likewise, its victims included English and Welsh alike. Falling like my
>great-uncles and David Jones' Welshry in the mud-fields of Flanders.
>
>best
>
>david
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Matthew Francis <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 10:24 PM
>Subject: Re: Wales and Welsh Writing
>
>
>> Sorry for reopening this can of worms. I understand if people are tired
of
>> it by now, but I thought it was important to get a couple of Welsh
>> viewpoints on the discussion. This is one, from my colleague the poet and
>> novelist Chris Meredith.
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> Matthew
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Meredith C (HaSS) <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: Siopcoffi <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: 12 February 2001 14:26
>> Subject: RE: Wales and Welsh Writing
>>
>>
>> >
>> >Thanks for letting us see this, Matthew. Most of us are rather tired of
>> the
>> >same old quasi-racist assumptions and cliches masquerading as liberal
>> >head-shaking at the depradations of the alleged centre on the alleged
>> >periphery. Mostly we heave a sigh and get on with writing our books,
>some
>> >of which may turn out to be less good than we hoped, but then that's
>hardly
>> >news anywhere in the world.
>> > DB's grasp of the reorganisation of Welsh govt. seems more profound
>than
>> >his knowledge of Welsh literature, but his knowledge of both on this
>> >evidence is slender. Devolution isn't mentioned, but, piddling though
>that
>> >development may seem, it democratizes most of the powers of the Welsh
>> Office
>> >that people like J. Redwood exercised behind closed doors in ways
exactly
>> >comparable with the actions of a colonial viceroy. Which ever way you
cut
>> it
>> >that's a significant change and it's already had a direct effect on the
>> >relationship between arts, govt. and Welsh people.
>> > The romanticising of Gwynedd as some beacon of hope - well a few of
>the
>> >best writers of the moment are northeners, though perhaps the most
>> >interesting of them, the novelist Wiliam Owen Roberts, lives in
Cardiff -
>> >this romanticising rather falls into line with what's now regarded here
>as
>> >the most right wing kind of nationalism, ironically. I hardly imagine
>> that
>> >the writer intended that.
>> > Perhaps there's a note of disappointment in some of these comments
>that
>> >Wales is turning out to be an ordinary, modern country.
>> > The insistence that the automatic comparison is with Ireland and
>> Scotland
>> >is a revealing one. Get in to the Celtic ghetto, you lot. Do poets of
>> >England expect to be standing next to other post-empire-running
>countries -
>> >the Dutch? the French? - to see, like schoolboys, who can pee furthest
up
>> >the wall? The very different and greater prominence of the Welsh
>language
>> >in the literature of Wales as compared with Irish in Ireland or Gaelic
in
>> >Scotland makes the comparison highly problematical. It would probably
be
>> >more to the purpose to make comparisons with say Galicia (which has
>greater
>> >political autonomy than Wales and devotes far mor resources to
>literature),
>> >or even Estonia. It's worth noting that the only translation into
>English
>> >of stories by Galego writer Xose Luis Mendez Ferin is published by a
>Welsh
>> >press. And which ever comparison you did make, if you based it on
actual
>> >knowledge of the literatures rather than vague impressions and a sense
>that
>> >all the best writers are dead (they always were, weren't they?), I feel
>> >Wales would come out rather better than DB assumes.
>> > For the record, I think some of the most interesting work in Welsh in
>> >recent years has been in fiction. Certainly the developments in, for
>want
>> >of a better word, post-modern devices have happened there. There have
>also
>> >been some interesting developments in how cynghanedd is being handled in
>> >some quite extraordinary ways by a couple of youngish poets - Emyr Lewis
>> amd
>> >Twm Morys. There was an article in English on this by Sioned Puw
>Rowlands
>> >in a number of Poetry Wales last year.
>> > Sorry to pump facts at you, but, the vacuum left by ignorance seems
to
>> >have drawn in the old half-truths and prejudices for some of the
>> >contributors to your discussion.
>> >Chris
>> >
>> >
>> >> -----Original Message-----
>> >> From: Matthew Francis [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
>> >> Sent: 10 February 2001 00:38
>> >> To: Siopcoffi
>> >> Subject: Wales and Welsh Writing
>> >>
>> >> There's been a long discussion on the poetryetc mailing list, to which
>I
>> >> belong, about the above topics. Here are the edited highlights, for
>> anyone
>> >> interested. (The discussion also veered off into such subjects as
rugby
>> >> and the Welsh sense of humour.) I left the discussion at this point,
>> >> feeling that I really needed some support from someone who knows
>> >> contemporary Welsh writing better than I do. David Kennedy, meanwhile,
>> >> posted a long extract from a review he's written putting forward his
>own
>> >> very critical views. Any comments?
>> >>
>> >> Best wishes
>> >>
>> >> Matthew
>> >>
>> >> David Bircumshaw: I was thinking of a) the utter unotherness of
>> industrial
>> >>
>> >> South Wales these days, that is it has a popular culture that is
>largely
>> >> just as much
>> >> sub-American as England's and b) literary Wales has lost its identity,
>> >> there are a lot of
>> >> 'Anglo-Welsh' poets aren't there who write flat mainstreamy kind of
>stuff
>> >> (Peter Finch might not like that statement but he's just one guy) but
>> even
>> >> more so Welsh literary culture now may be one of the least distinct in
>> >> Europe: the Thomases are dead, Saunders Lewis and the London-Welsh
>David
>> >> Jones too. I gather there's some kind of kick still in the North, but
>no
>> >> really strong voice. Wales 'reads' to me like a culture that has truly
>> >> collapsed under a colonial weight.
>> >> One only has to look to Scotland for contrast.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Me: I'm not the best person to reply to this, being still fairly new
to
>> >> Wales,
>> >> but I'd better try anyway. [It] still has a great deal
>> >> of otherness as far as I'm concerned....
>> >>
>> >> Anglo-Welsh, by the way, is not the preferred
>> >> term nowadays; it's been replaced by the rather more longwinded but
>less
>> >> loaded Welsh writing in English.
>> >>
>> >> Peter Finch may be only one guy, but he isn't the only one who would
>take
>> >> issue with your comments about contemporary Welsh poetry. For a good
>> >> cross-section, may I refer list members to the Welsh poetry edition of
>> the
>> >> net magazine Slope at <http://slope.org/slope/this.html> ?
>> >>
>> >> DB: There seems to a mild problem of perception on this list about the
>> use
>> >> of
>> >> inverted commas as a stylistic device to indicate distancing.
>> >> That was the context of my employment of 'Anglo-Welsh'.
>> >>
>> >> I respect the work Peter Finch has done over the years, but he is just
>> one
>> >> guy, and at the same time he's allowed himself an all too accomodating
>> >> attitude to obvious mediocrity. I say this in sorrow, not anger, Wales
>> >> needs
>> >> writers, writers to speak for it.
>> >> But they're all dead.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Me: I understood the inverted commas as distancing *you* from the
>phrase
>> >> 'Anglo-Welsh' but felt they implied you were attributing it to
>> >> contemporary
>> >> Welsh poets and thus suggesting a complicity in their own
colonization.
>> >> Whereas it is precisely this generation of Welsh writers, not your
>> praised
>> >> generation of the Thomases, Saunders Lewis etc, who have rejected it.
>> >>
>> >> It seems to me you're romanticizing Wales's past at the expense of the
>> >> reality of its
>> >> present. Anyone can point to the great dead and ask where are their
>> >> equivalents now? It's an old, tired rhetorical device. They've sealed
>> >> their
>> >> reputations by dying, whereas the mediocrities of those days have been
>> >> forgotten. Contemporary Welsh writers are as intensely involved in the
>> >> political and cultural issue of Welshness as any of their predecessors
>> >> have been.
>> >> They are not wannabe English or American, nor are they caricature
>Welsh.
>> >> The country deserves better than the easy dismissals it has so often
>had
>> >> from the English.
>> >>
>> >> DB: As I said in a post to Lawrence, regarding the language, I have
>faint
>> >> hopes
>> >> of the North, of the idea of Gwynedd, but that remains to be seen.
>> >>
>> >> But any honest response to Welsh culture today has to compare it with
>> that
>> >> of Scotland or Ireland now and I'm afraid the comparison is not
>> >> favourable.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> David Kennedy: I suggest that anyone who thinks there is a renaissance
>> >> going on in Wales
>> >> goes and reads the recent Seren antho Oxygen. With a few exceptions -
>> >> Oliver
>> >> Reynolds, Deryn Rees-Jones, Stephen Knight - it makes for dismal
>reading.
>> >> I'm not qualified to judge the Welsh poetry altho' judging by the
>> >> translations it has more energy and wit.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Me: I am not making any particular claims (David K) for a Welsh poetic
>> >> renaissance. I still don't know Welsh poetry well enough to be able to
>> say
>> >> one way or another. But I don't think it was fair to single Wales out
>> >> (David
>> >> B) as culture-starved and lacking in a sense of identity. That has
been
>> >> very
>> >> far from my experience of the country. And I am only too aware, as one
>> who
>> >> lived for many years within a hundred miles of the Welsh border
without
>> >> much
>> >> curiosity about what might be on the other side, how prone the English
>> are
>> >> to be dismissive of Wales and the Welsh.
>> >>
>> >> If the list had one or two Welsh members to stick up for
>> >> their country, I would probably leave it to those better informed.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> DB: I think this is where our wires are being crossed. My original and
>> >> aside
>> >> remark on the topic was in the context of the cultural imbalance
caused
>> by
>> >> the gravitational centricity of London in British culture as a whole,
>> >> unlike
>> >> the sitiuation vis-a-vis the capital cities of Spain, Italy, Germany
or
>> >> the
>> >> U.S (my examples) during which I mentioned that Scotland could, in the
>> >> British context, be regarded as, culturally, another 'country', the
>> >> implication being that it was articulated and strong enough to
maintain
>a
>> >> distinct cultural independence, unlike the situation in Wales in
>_recent_
>> >> years, which I considered to have imploded culturally, as a result ofv
>> the
>> >> pressures of 'colonialist' cultural gravities. And this was an
occasion
>> >> for
>> >> regret, not English dismissal of Wales and the Welsh. I mentioned, as
I
>> >> keep
>> >> mentioning, that there was some resistance, albeit threatened, in the
>> idea
>> >> of Gwynedd, alto' I could note with irony how the most recent
>> >> reorganisation
>> >> of local government had returned that area to its anglicized and
former
>> >> disintegation of poilitical units, but the literary/poetic culture
that
>> of
>> >> the 'idea of the South' was largely one that was subservient to, and
>> >> imitative of, models derived from the notional metropolitan centre.
>> >> It's not that I dismiss all Welsh writing, but my general response
>would
>> >> be
>> >> akin to David Kennedy's reaction to the Seren anthology, the writers
of
>> >> interest in Wales seeming few and isolated.
>> >>
>> >> I do not write from outside the culture of lower-class life, being
part
>> of
>> >> it all my life, nor
>> >> do I write from a perspective of distance to Wales, I love the country
>> and
>> >> what I wrote was in sorrow not anger, and the culturally colonised
>> >> enfeeblement I attribute to it is one that I would also see as shared
>> with
>> >> the English regions...
>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>> -
>> >> -----------------------
>> >
>> >
>> >_________________________________________________________________
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>> >
>> >
>> >
>
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