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Authority record

Stephens, Meic

  • n 50020764
  • Person
  • 1938-2018

Meic Stephens, poet and editor, was born in Trefforest and educated at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and the University of Rennes. From 1962 to 1966, he taught French in Ebbw Vale. He established The Triskel Press at Merthyr Tydfil, where he lived at the time, and also launched the periodical Poetry Wales, which he edited from 1965 until 1973; also served for a year on the staff of the Western Mail. In 1967, Stephens was appointed Literary Director with the Welsh Arts Council. He published his first poetic works in Triad (1963). His work Linguistic Minorities in Western Europe (Llandysul, 1976) involved a detailed study of culture and politics in sixteen European states. Amongst the works edited by Stephens are an anthology of Anglo-Welsh poetry titled The Lilting House (with John Stuart Williams, London and Llandybïe, 1969), Artists in Wales (three volumes, Llandysul, 1971, 1973, 1977), the Writers of Wales series (with R. Brinley Jones, 1970- ), the poetic anthology Green Horse (with Peter Finch, Swansea, 1978), and Cydymaith i Lenyddiaeth Cymru (Llandysul, 1986).

Watkins, Vernon Phillips, 1906-1967

  • n 50021861
  • Person

Vernon Watkins (1906-1967), poet, was the second of three children of William and Sarah Watkins. He was born in Maesteg, Glamorgan, on 27 June 1906 but grew up in Swansea, Glamorgan, and on the Gower. He attended Repton School, Derbyshire, 1920-1924, then (for one year) studied modern languages at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He was briefly a clerk at Lloyds Bank in Cardiff but after a breakdown he returned home to Swansea and moved to the Lloyds Bank branch in St Helens. He served with RAF Police and Intelligence, 1941-1946, but otherwise remained with Lloyds for the remainder of his working life. In 1941 he published his first collection of poems, Ballad of the Mari Lwyd (London, 1941), followed by The Lamp and the Veil (London, 1945), Selected Poems (Norfolk, Conn., 1948), The Lady with the Unicorn (London, 1948), The Death Bell (London, 1954), Cypress and Acacia (London, 1959), Affinities (London, 1962), and Fidelities (London, 1968) which appeared posthumously. As a poet he was scrupulous, working through numerous drafts to reach a final version and often undertaking further revision after publication. In addition to original poetry he translated European verse into English, including Heine's The North Sea (London, 1955), and wrote essays on other poets. He corresponded widely with literary figures and became friends with the likes of W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Philip Larkin and, in particular, Dylan Thomas. In 1944 he married Gwendoline (Gwen) Mary Davies (b. 1923), a colleague at RAF Intelligence, and they had five children. Following his retirement in 1966 he lectured at the University College of Swansea. He was then appointed Visiting Professor of Poetry at the University of Washington but died on 8 October 1967, shortly after arriving in Seattle to take up his post. Some of his previously unpublished and uncollected works appeared in Uncollected Poems (London, 1969), Selected Verse Translations, ed. by Ruth Pryor (London, 1977), The Breaking of the Wave (Ipswich, 1979), and Ballad of the Outer Dark, ed. by Ruth Pryor (London, 1979).

Dyer, John, 1700?-1758

  • n 50024941
  • Person

John Dyer, poet, artist and priest, was born in Llanfynydd, Carmarthenshire. He was educated locally, then later sent to Westminster School, from where he returned to Wales to study law. In 1720 he went to London to study poetry and painting and was apprenticed to the portrait painter Jonathan Richardson. In London Dyer met many influential figures of the literary and artistic world, including Arthur Pond, George Vertue, Daniel Wray, Aaron Hill and Richard Savage. His sojourn in Italy from 1724 to 1725 yielded such poetic works as 'Written at Ocriculum' and 'The Ruins of Rome'. Publication of Dyer's poetry began in 1726 with 'Grongar Hill', a work inspired by his home landscape near Aberglasne. From 1730 to 1738 Dyer took over his aunt's farm at Mapleton in Worcestershire then, in 1738, he bought two farms of his own near Nuneaton in Warwickshire. In 1741 Dyer was ordained deacon and priest and served as rector of Catthorpe in Leicestershire until 1751; it was in Leicestershire that he began The Fleece, a major work on British wool production and world trade published in four books from 1750 to 1757. In 1751 Dyer moved to livings in Lincolnshire, where, at his home in Coningsby rectory, he died of consumption. Only seven of Dyer's paintings are known to survive. They include a self-portrait of the 1720s and sketches executed whilst in Italy.

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