Parch

Menna Elfyn is 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 this hybrid book – for the first time – she 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. 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.

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 distils the essence of Parch: respect as refuge; the triumph of compassion over conflict.

Menna Elfyn has published five dual-language books of poetry with Bloodaxe. Her 2007 retrospective Perfect Blemish: New & Selected Poems was followed by two further Welsh-English collections, Murmur (2012), a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation; and Bondo (2017). Parch is Menna Elfyn’s sixth poetry book from Bloodaxe, and is her first book to include poems written direct into English and in her own translation.

Menna Elfyn is one of the foremost Welsh-language writers. As well as being an award-winning poet, she has published plays, libretti and children’s novels, and co-edited The Bloodaxe Book of Modern Welsh Poetry (2003) with John Rowlands.

Her books include two bilingual selections, Eucalyptus: Detholiad o Gerddi / Selected Poems 1978-1994 (Gomer Press, 1995), and Perfect Blemish: New & Selected Poems / Perffaith Nam: Dau Ddetholiad & Cherddi Newydd 1995-2007 (Bloodaxe Books, 2007), a Welsh-only selection Merch Perygl: Cerddi 1976-2011 (Gomer Press, 2011), and two later bilingual collections from Bloodaxe, Murmur (2012), a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation, and Bondo (2017). Parch (2025) is Menna Elfyn’s sixth poetry book from Bloodaxe. For the first time in this collection, she has written many of the poems direct into English, and translated some of them herself.

Optimist Absoliwt: Cofiant Eluned Phillips, her biography of the poet Eluned Phillips, was published (in Welsh) in 2016, and Cwsg: am dro yn ôl, a book about sleep illustrated by Sarah Williams, in 2019, both from Gomer Press. Her most recent Welsh language collection, Tosturi (Mercy), with illustrations by Meinir Mathias (Cyhoeddiadau Barddas, 2022), was shortlisted for the 2023 Welsh-language Wales Book of the Year Poetry Award.

When not travelling the world for readings and residencies, she lives in Carmarthen. She was Wales’s National Children’s Laureate in 2002, and was made President of Wales PEN Cymru in 2014. She was, until 2016, Creative Director in the School of Cultural Studies at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David; she is also Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing. She won a Cholmondeley Award in 2022, a prize which recognises a poet's body of work.