Compact Wales: Shepherd War Poet, The (Paperback)

A century after his death as a young man on a blood-soaked battlefield far from his mountain farm, Hedd Wyn's name remains seared on an entire nation's memory. His home has become a place of pilgrimage, and his story continues to sadden, anger and inspire us. This volume comprises a collection of Hedd Wyn's poems in English translation by Howard Huws with 54 striking images.He was a shepherd, not a soldier. He was also a promising young poet from the heartland of Meirionnydd. He had learned the craft of Welsh poetry and was killed only a few weeks before the National Eisteddfod in Birkenhead in 1917, the Eisteddfod in which his ode had been deemed worthy of its Chair. His story has a cruel twist in its tail and the loss of Hedd Wyn came to embody all the losses of the First World War in Wales. Hedd Wyn was lost far too early but some of his poems are, without a shadow of doubt, among the most famous and most significant Welsh poems of the 20th century. The translated selection in this volume will reach a wider audience who will feel empathy with the grief, but will also appreciate the values embossed in the poems the love of country, people, friendship and peace. These are the values that we uphold earnestly when we remember and try to understand what happened a century ago.