Rowen Jones. Llangennech
P o e t r y
Found my national identity in England
surrounded by saes
Repeated my home town once, twice -
Llan. Genn. Ech.
Yes. Lots of spitting sounds
No I don't know Ellie Jones just cos she's Welsh…
actually wait I do yeah, she went to Olchfa and her mother knows my step brawds missus.
Our Welshness constantly tested
Like ‘why does no one speak it?’
contested with the crest on their chest
Knotted and forgotten with each conquest
On your horses and in your pillages
wore down villages
tore us from the language, dissected
And stored in a stillage.
My bilingual love story
dydw i ddim yn siarad cyrmaeg
...well, tipin bach.
This is to our culture crammed in one hour lessons a week,
rugby clubs, cawl and shagging sheep
Wales is The land of my fathers,
Ar hyd a nos
It’s the beauty of the North
to the grit of Gendros
It’s the matriarchal moores towering over Thatcher torn towns
Poetry’s in my veins
in words I will drown
In the rushing river streams to the steelworks strewn apart
'Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art’