Gwyneth Lewis
| Gwyneth Lewis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Occupation | Poet; non-fiction writer |
| Nationality | Welsh |
| Notable awards | National Poet of Wales |
| Website | |
|
gwynethlewis | |
Gwyneth Lewis (born 1959) is a Welsh poet and was the inaugural National Poet of Wales.
Biography
Lewis was born into a Welsh speaking family in Cardiff; her father started teaching her English when her mother went into hospital to give birth to her sister.[1]
Lewis attended Ysgol Gyfun Rhydfelen, a bilingual school near Pontypridd, and then studied at Girton College, Cambridge, University of Cambridge, where she was a member of Cymdeithas Y Mabinogi and was awarded a double first in English literature and the Laurie Hart Prize for outstanding intellectual work. Lewis then studied creative writing at Columbia and Harvard, before receiving a D.Phil in English from Balliol College, Oxford University, having written a thesis on eighteenth-century literary forgery on the work of Iolo Morganwg.[2]
Lewis was made a Harkness Fellow and worked as a freelance journalist in New York for three years. Lewis returned to Cardiff and worked as a documentary producer and director at BBC Wales.[2]
Lewis left the BBC in 2001 after she was awarded a £75,000 grant by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts to carry out research and to sail to ports that are linked historically with the inhabitants of her native city, Cardiff.
She later wrote the words which appear over the Wales Millennium Centre which opened in November 2004. The same words form the title of Karl Jenkins' cantata In These Stones Horizons Sing, which is partly set to lyrics by Gwyneth Lewis. In 2005 she was elected Honorary Fellow of Cardiff University. The same year she was made the first National Poet of Wales.[3][4]
She was a judge for the 2011 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine.
On 6 August 2012 she won Y Goron (the Crown) at the National Eisteddfod at Llandow for a collection of poems on the set title of 'Ynys' ('Island').
Music
Lewis has entered the world of music, in partnership with Richard Chew. Redflight/ Barcud was her first libretto, commissioned and presented by Welsh National Opera with pupils from Ysgol Capel y Cynfab, Cynghordy and Ysgol Cil-y-cwm. The Most Beautiful Man from the Sea is an oratorio for six hundred voices, with music by Chew and Orlando Gough. It was given its world première at the Wales Millennium Centre by the Chorus of Welsh National Opera and five hundred amateur singers.
Personal life
Married to Leighton, a former bosun with the Merchant Navy, Lewis has had a well documented battle in the past with clinical depression[5] and alcoholism.[6] Her personal battles inspired her first book Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book on Depression; as well as the collection of poems Keeping Mum – Voices from Therapy.
Having agreed to change their lifestyles for their own good, Lewis and her husband bought the small yacht Jameeleh, and having taught themselves to sail set out to cross the Atlantic ocean to Africa. The journey inspired her 2005 book Two in a Boat – The True Story of a Marital Rite of Passage.[6]
Bibliography
- Llwybrau bywyd – Urdd Gobaith Cymru, 1977
- Ar y groesffordd – Urdd Gobaith Cymru, 1978
- Sonedau Redsa a Cherddi Eraill – Gomer, 1990
- Parables and Faxes – Bloodaxe, 1995
- Cyfrif Un Ac Un yn Dri – Barddas, 1996
- Zero Gravity – Bloodaxe, 1998: inspired by her astronaut cousin's voyage to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, the BBC later made a documentary based on the poetry[7]
- Y Llofrudd Iaith – Barddas, 2000: won the Welsh Arts Council Book of the Year Prize
- Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book on Depression – Flamingo, 2002
- Keeping Mum (republished in 2005, as 'Chaotic Angels') – Bloodaxe, 2003
- Two In A Boat: A Marital Voyage – Fourth Estate, 2005: recounts a voyage which she made with her husband on a small boat from Cardiff to North Africa, during which her husband was diagnosed with cancer
- A Hospital Odyssey – Bloodaxe, 2010
- The Meat Tree – Seren, 2010
- Sparrow Tree – Bloodaxe, 2011
- Y Storm, 2012, (Lewis's translation of Shakespeare's The Tempest)[8]
Prizes and awards
Current list of prizes and awards:[9]
- 1977 – Literary Medal at the Urdd Gobaith Cymru[2]
- 1978 – Literary Medal at the Urdd Gobaith Cymru
- 1988 – Eric Gregory Award
- 1995 – Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize Parables and Faxes
- 1995 – Forward Poetry Prize (Best First Collection) (shortlist) Parables and Faxes
- 1998 – Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year) (shortlist) Zero Gravity
- 2000 – Arts Council of Wales Book of the Year Award Y Llofrudd Iaith
- 2001 – National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) Award
References
- ↑ The poet Gwyneth Lewis on how she learned English in secret with her father | By genre | Guardian Unlimited Books
- 1 2 3 CREW Welsh Writers Online: Gwyneth Lewis
- ↑ Intute: Arts and Humanities – Full record details for Gwyneth Lewis : Wales' first national poet
- ↑ BBC NEWS | Wales | Mid Wales | 'Poet for ever' urges laureate
- ↑ BBC NEWS | Health | Celebrity health – Gwyneth Lewis
- 1 2 Two in a Boat: The True Story of a Marital Rite of Passage by Gwyneth Lewis
- ↑ Gwyneth Lewis – Biography
- ↑ Y Storm
- ↑ Gwyneth Lewis
External links
- Gwyneth Lewis personal website
- Bio at ContemporaryWriters.com
- Gwyneth Lewis profile at BBC Wales
- Listen to Gwyneth Lewis reading her poetry – a British Library recording, 12 July 2010.