Grahame Davies

Last updated

Grahame Davies

CVO
Born1964 (age 59–60)
Coedpoeth, Wales
Occupationpoet, author, librettist, editor and literary critic, former journalist and courtier
Education
Website
grahamedavies.com

Grahame Clive Davies CVO (born 1964) is a Welsh poet, author, editor, librettist, literary critic and former journalist and courtier. He was brought up in the former coal mining village of Coedpoeth near Wrexham in north east Wales. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Education

After gaining a degree in English Literature at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, he qualified as a journalist with the Thomson Organisation at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1997, he was awarded a doctorate by the University of Wales for his study, written in Welsh, of the work of R. S. Thomas, Saunders Lewis, T.S. Eliot and Simone Weil, whom he identified as part of an anti-modern trend in Western culture in the 20th Century. [3]

Employment

He worked as a newspaper journalist from 1986-1992, and for the BBC from 1992-2012, in various roles in television current affairs, new media and policy, becoming Newsgathering Editor for BBC Cymru Wales. His newspaper, television and new media work brought him a number of Welsh and industry awards.

In 2012, he became a Member of the Royal Household as Assistant Private Secretary to The Prince of Wales, later King Charles III, becoming Deputy Private Secretary in 2018, and leaving in October 2023 to become Director of Mission and Strategy for the Church in Wales. [4]

Literary Career

He is the author of 19 books in Welsh and English including poetry, psychogeography, novels, and intercultural studies.

As a librettist, he has carried out many major commissions for classical composers including Sir Karl Jenkins, Paul Mealor, Sarah Class, Debbie Wiseman, Tom Harrold, Roderick Williams, Peter Boyer, Nigel Hess and Joanna Gill. For the 2023 coronation of Charles III, Davies' text Sacred Fire was set to a composition by Sarah Class and performed by South African soprano Pretty Yende. [5] He also provided the Welsh words for the Veni Creator Spiritus, and the lyrics for the Song of Thanksgiving and Dedication, by Joanna Gill for the Honours of Scotland service on July 5.

As a Welsh language poet, he is the author of three solo volumes. In 1997, his first volume, Adennill Tir (Barddas), a book arising from the 11 years he spent in Merthyr Tydfil in the south Wales Valleys, won the Harri Webb Memorial Prize. [3] In 2001, his second volume, Cadwyni Rhyddid (Barddas), appeared. It quickly went to a second edition and won the Wales Arts Council's 2002 Book of the Year award at the Hay on Wye Festival of Literature, together with a prize of £3,000. His third volume, Achos, appeared from Barddas in 2005.

As an English language poet, a bilingual volume of poetry, Ffiniau/Borders, jointly with Elin ap Hywel, appeared from Gomer press in 2002, [3] [6] His first solo volume in English, Lightning Beneath the Sea, appeared from Seren in 2012, and his second, A Darker Way, also from Seren in 2024. His poem 'Departed', from Lightning Beneath the Sea, was Poem of the Week in The Guardian in 2012, and his poem 'The Journalist', from A Darker Way, was Poem of the Week in 2024.

As an academic, in 1999, his study of Wales and the anti-modern movement, Sefyll yn y Bwlch (University of Wales Press, 1999), the product of his doctorate, went "straight to the front rank of criticism of our day," according to the critic Dr Dafydd Glyn Jones (Barn), and was described as "a signal book" by the critic Dr Angharad Price (New Welsh Review). Interfaith relations have been one of his major specialisms. In 2002, Seren Press published his study, The Chosen People, detailing the relationship of the Welsh and the Jewish people as reflected in literature. [3] [7] A follow-up study on Wales and Islam, The Dragon and the Crescent, appeared from Seren in 2011.

As a novelist, his first novel Rhaid i Bopeth Newid, published by Gomer in 2004, was longlisted for the £10,000 Book of the Year prize, 2005, and was described by Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas in the periodical Taliesin as 'the first post-national novel.' In 2007, revised and expanded, it appeared in English as Everything Must Change.

As a psychogeographer, his Real Wrexham, appeared in 2007 from Seren Books, and Real Cambridge in 2021, also from Seren. As an editor and anthologist, in 2000, he co-edited Oxygen (Seren), a bilingual anthology of Welsh poets aged under 45. [3] and he has edited several anthologies of Welsh literature in other languages, including, in 2002, a 160-page edition of the Bulgarian literary magazine Plamak (“Flame”), and in 2004 and 2005 respectively, selections of Welsh poetry in Asturian and Galician translations as Nel país del borrina (The Country of the Clouds). and No país de la brétema from VTP Editorial. [3] His work as anthologist has also included The Big Book of Cardiff (edited with Peter Finch) (Seren Press, 2005), and a collection of work by and about refugees and asylum seekers, Gwyl Y Blaidd: The Festival of the Wolf (co-editor) (Parthian, 2006).

He was a board member of the Welsh Academi from 2005-2011 and Welsh language editor of Poetry Wales magazine for several years until 2002. His work has been widely translated and anthologised, appearing in publications such as The Times, The Times Literary Supplement, Poetry London, the Literary Review in America, and the Yearbook of Welsh Writing in English. [3]

He is a frequent contributor of articles and reviews to journals, and his poetry is on the syllabus for school pupils in Wales. He travels internationally as a reader and lecturer. He was Vice President of Goodenough College in London and an Honorary Research Fellow in Cardiff University. [3]

Selected publications

Contributed to:

Awards

Judge

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Finch (poet)</span> Welsh writer

Peter Finch is a Welsh author, psychogeographer and poet living in Cardiff, Wales.

Gillian Clarke is a Welsh poet and playwright, who also edits, broadcasts, lectures and translates from Welsh into English. She co-founded Tŷ Newydd, a writers' centre in North Wales.

Morgan Llwyd was a Puritan Fifth Monarchist and Welsh-language poet and prose author.

David James Jones, commonly known by his bardic name Gwenallt, was a Welsh poet, critic, and scholar, and one of the most important figures of 20th-century Welsh-language literature. He created his bardic name by transposing Alltwen, the name of the village across the river from his birthplace.

The Wales Book of the Year is a Welsh literary award given annually to the best Welsh and English language works in the fields of fiction and literary criticism by Welsh or Welsh interest authors. Established in 1992, the awards are currently administered by Literature Wales, and supported by the Arts Council of Wales, Welsh Government and the Welsh Books Council.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nigel Jenkins</span> Anglo-Welsh poet

Nigel Jenkins was an Anglo-Welsh poet. He was an editor, journalist, psychogeographer, broadcaster and writer of creative non-fiction, as well as being a lecturer at Swansea University and director of the creative writing programme there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Evans-Jones</span> Welsh poet

Sir (Albert) Cynan Evans-Jones CBE, more commonly known within Wales by his bardic name of Cynan, was a Welsh war poet and dramatist.

Menna Elfyn, FLSW is a Welsh poet, playwright, columnist, and editor who writes in Welsh. She has been widely commended and translated. She was imprisoned for her campaigning as a Welsh-language activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gwyneth Lewis</span> Inaugural National Poet of Wales

Gwyneth Denver Davies, FLSW, known professionally as Gwyneth Lewis, is a Welsh poet, who was the inaugural National Poet of Wales in 2005. She wrote the text that appears over the Wales Millennium Centre.

Mihangel Morgan is a Welsh author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twm Morys</span> Welsh poet and musician

Twm Morys is a Welsh poet and musician.

T. Gerald Hunter FLSW, more commonly known as Jerry Hunter, is an American graduate of the University of Cincinnati (BA), Aberystwyth (MPhil) and Harvard University (PhD). Originally from Cincinnati, he now lives in Wales and has held academic posts at Cardiff and more recently Bangor University, where he is currently (2015) a professor in the School of Welsh and deputy vice chancellor of the university He was a founding member of the pressure group Cymuned and is former editor of the Academi's literary periodical Taliesin.

John Ellis Williams,, novelist and writer from Caernarfonshire, wrote in Welsh and in English.

Meic Stephens, FLSW was a Welsh literary editor, journalist, translator, and poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Jenkins (poet)</span> Welsh poet (born 1953)

Mike Jenkins is a Welsh poet and fiction writer in English. He is also the father of the Plaid Cymru politician Bethan Sayed and of the journalist Ciaran Jenkins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howell Elvet Lewis</span> Welsh poet and preacher (1860–1953)

Howell Elvet Lewis, widely known by his bardic name Elfed, was a Welsh Congregational minister, hymn-writer, and devotional poet, who served as Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales from 1924 to 1928.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christine James</span> Welsh poet and academic

Christine James FLSW is a Welsh poet and academic. She served as the first female Archdruid of Wales from June 2013 until June 2016. She first presided over the ceremonies at the National Eisteddfod in the 2013 Eisteddfod in Denbigh. Like all holders, she qualified by winning a major literary prize at a previous National Eisteddfod. She was elected Cofiadur (Recorder) of the Gorsedd of Bards at the National Eisteddfod in 2017, again as the first woman to hold the post. She is a recipient of the Wales Book of the Year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Hughes Jones</span> Welsh poet and writer (1895–1966)

Thomas Hughes Jones was a Welsh poet and writer from Ceredigion (Cardiganshire) in West Wales. He wrote several collections of stories and contributed to various journals, including Welsh Outlook, throughout his career. In 1940 he won the Literature Medal for his story, "Sgweier Hafila", at the National Eisteddfod. His pen name was generally abbreviated to "T. Hughes Jones".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Bianchi</span> British writer (1952–2017)

Tony Bianchi was a prize-winning novelist, poet, short-story writer and critic, writing in both Welsh and English.

John Davies is a Welsh poet whose first collection, The Strangers, was published in 1974. He was awarded the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize in 1985.

References

  1. ↑ "Grahame Davies | Seren Books". Archived from the original on 11 November 2011. Retrieved 30 April 2013.
  2. ↑ "Grahame Davies - Authors". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Davies, Grahame". The Writers of Wales Database. Literature Wales. Archived from the original on 2 March 2014. Retrieved 30 April 2013.
  4. ↑ https://www.churchinwales.org.uk/en/news-and-events/director-of-mission-and-strategy-appointed/
  5. ↑ Limbu, Dawn; PA Media (16 April 2023). "Bristol composer's pride in writing music for King's coronation". BBC News. Retrieved 29 May 2023.
  6. ↑ "Elin Ap Hywel (poet) - United Kingdom - Poetry International". Archived from the original on 19 August 2014.
  7. ↑ "BBC CYMru'r BYD - Adloniant - Llyfrau".
  8. ↑ "CENTRAL CHANCERY OF THE ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD". London Gazette. Retrieved 7 December 2023.
  9. ↑ "2020 Birthday Honours". The London Gazette .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.