Join us for an evening of poetry celebrating the Edinburgh launch of Menna’s latest collection, Parch, featuring readings from Menna and local poets writing at the intersection of translation and language, including Marcas Mac an Tuairneir.
Menna Elfyn is perhaps the best-known, most travelled and most translated of all Welsh-language poets – until now writing exclusively in Welsh. Her work has been translated into English and other languages by leading poets from around the world. Following many years of campaigning, Menna Elfyn is moving towards her own sense of resolution as the Welsh language is now accepted and respected as an official language in Wales.
In Parch – for the first time – Menna has translated or written many of the original poems in English, now describing herself as ‘a proud bilingual’, while she remains a Welsh language poet.
Menna Elfyn shares Herta Müller’s belief that ‘holding one’s own language up to the eyes of another leads to a solid relationship, a relaxed kind of love’. This distills the essence of Parch: respect as refuge; the triumph of compassion over conflict.
Other poems in the book are translated by Emma Baines, Joseph P. Clancy, Gillian Clarke, Robert Minhinnick and R.S. Thomas. The poems in Parch offer a voice to those whose liberty or dignity have been undermined, seeking religious, linguistic and cultural tolerance for all, and not shying away from the effects of (in)humanity on our environment, histories and lives. Among these are harrowing poems responding to sexual harassment, exploitation and violence against women and girls, as well as to the plight of people caught up in armed conflicts past and present.
Mercy is a recurring theme, with poems addressing the tension between justice and forgiveness. In Welsh, ‘parch’ (the ‘ch’ is guttural) simply means respect. Menna Elfyn’s collection explores the many ways in which respect can be expressed, as well as how our world can so often feel parched of simple kindnesses.
Our other poets include:
York-born, Edinburgh-based Mark Spencer Turner writes in English and Polari, having published extensively in Gaelic as Marcas Mac an Tuairneir. Dùileach (Evertype, 2021) and Polaris (Leamington Books, 2022) were both shortlisted for the Derick Thomson Prize, whilst the latter was also shortlisted for Scottish Poetry Book of the Year and a Saboteur Award. He is the only winner of both Gaelic (2017) and International (2024) Poetry Prizes at Wigtown. He was awarded the Gold Medal for poetry at the Royal National Mòd and the National Gaelic Award for Arts and Culture in 2023. The 2024 Makar of the Federation of Writers (Scotland), he is Gaelic Editor of Northwords Now and Poet-in-residence at the Balmoral Hotel.
