Yer ower voices!
Mike Jenkins, Culture Matters, £12 

THE subtitle of this exciting book is “dialect poems in Welsh and English from Cymru.”

What it means by that is dialects of Welsh English and dialects of Welsh language mainly, along with hybrid dialects of Welsh and English blended. 

The book is divided by geographical regional dialects so we have Swansea, the Valleys, Cardiff/ Newport, north and west Wales and so on, and the dialects even within these areas are diverse but with a certain commonality of thought. 

This is by all accounts the first anthology of its kind ever published. 

The book was inspired by a Radio 4 programme which the editor felt fell short in its portrayal of dialect poetry as “frivolous and merely fit for humourous verse.”

So the redoubtable Mike Jenkins set forth on his mission to find dialect poetry that represented what the radio programme only touched on.

That is, poetry which expressed so much more about the lives of working-class people in particular, the political situations which totally devalue them and the ways in which the ever-changing language of the streets express these themes. And how humour, and especially satire, can have very serious overtones.

The book represents a wide range of differing dialects, and the inclusion of a Guyanese Creole/ English poem by Maggie Harris (Cwmpengraig, place of stones) itself opens up perspectives about the suppression of dialect through oppression and enslavement. A Welsh translation is added by Menna Elfyn. It makes for fascinating  and vital reading. 

The other poems’ subject matter is more or less focused on the everyday lives of working-class people, their contradictions and problems.

The opportunity for people who do not relate to poetry in the mainstream is afforded by a speaking of the language that they can recognise and so be given a licence to write themselves.

In Scotland where traditions of literature lend themselves to the Scottish poetic canon, dialects are a staple part of poetry and are accepted in their many forms as valid viewpoints and voices.

The various dialects of “Welsh English” and dialects of the Welsh language represented here are fabulously diverse in their presentation. Some like the Swansea (Swonzee) dialect of David Hughes are not too difficult to comprehend once your ear has acclimatised to the voice, you can hear the Welsh accent coming through.

No domine fewnruls/ But I noticed larse time upper crem/ I’m getting much closer twer front seats. 

(No, don’t mind funerals/ But I noticed last time I was up at the crem(atorium)/ I’m getting much closer to the front seats).

In the more challenging phonetic representations of dialect with Stephen Knight in the poem In This Dream Of Swansea you almost have to forget you are speaking English and just read the words out loud to prise open their meaning, but the effort is worth it.

Eye m’honour — buss Ohm/ inner paw rinn reign/ nigh muddlinin Shad doze…

(I'm on a bus home in the pouring rain nearly muddlin (lost) in shadows)

As the poet Gemma June Howells tells us in the introduction to her poems in south Walian valleys dialect: “With any poem you have to read it several times to understand it… Just because someone can’t instantly recognise the syntax, they write it off. But, what you’re actually doing is writing off the voice from where it comes.”  

Poetry to this poet is “about getting to the heart of what it means to be alive and reflecting who we are in the context of the universality of the human condition.”

Wha’ yew doo-in sittin exams?/ Yew carn av thah where/ wee-yuh frum./ See ’em by there?/ — Pushin prams/ Tha’s where yew-uh frum (from the poem Head Hunted).

The book is groundbreaking in that it’s the first of its kind and it is also funny, insightful and packed with genuine Welsh voices that have struggled to be heard.