Wisdom from a thousand years of Welsh Nature Poetry
Gwyneth Lewis writes:
‘Carwyn Graves has mustered a surprising ally in the fight against nature degradation. His account of Welsh nature poetry shows what poets have always known: that we are part of nature, not aside from it. His emphasis on the social nature of Welsh poetry is joyful, a much-needed corrective in the age of extractive individualism.’
From the blurb:
“At a time of biodiversity loss and climate grief, we need to reset our relationship with the natural world. Cynefin helps us hear the voices of people down the centuries who have, through poetry, expressed a different way of connecting with the living world around us.
Carwyn Graves explores how the Welsh poetic tradition offers an alternative view of our place in the world, and world and demonstrates its power to help us address the challenges we face.
Grief and loss are mediated through snow and the cuckoo’s song, with ecological sensibilities celebrated in medieval poems and the abundance of life declaimed in gem-like englynion. In a thousand years of poetry we see the natural world portrayed not as a pristine realm but a human home; bittersweet as well as welcoming.
Above all Carwyn invites us, through these poems, to encounter the living world – in seagulls and sheepflocks, a lake or a wheatfield – not in the abstract but in all its sparkling specificity.”
Available for preorder now!
Publication April 2026
