The Red Book of Hergest Ward

This is a sequence of what I retrospectively regard as 'countersonnets', and they are composed from overheard and gathered material. They derive their shape from the floorplan of the Hergest Unit in Bangor, Gwynedd. The Hergest Unit consists of 3 octagonal buildings that are named after the poets Taliesin, Cynan and Aneurin. A number of my friends have been temporarily housed at this department of Ysbyty Gwynedd Hospital over the years.

The Red Book of Hergest, which provides much of the material for this book, is a Middle Welsh text scribed by Hywel Fychan and others in the fourteenth century. It contains seminal Welsh works of literature, including 'The Mabinogion' and the poetry of 'Y Cynfeirdd' and 'Y Gogynferidd'.

I particularly enjoy the great elastic leaps and figurations of elements, languages, and histories in this dynamic volume. The chaos we live through!                 

– Caroline Bergvall