Poetry: Right as Rain
Joseph P. Clancy. That book was an extensive selection from the seven volumes of Jones's poetry published between 1957 and 1976.
On this website now, we publish a further selection of translations from the seven volumes of poetry between 1976 and 2005: namely Casgliad o Gerddi (1989), Canu Arnaf I (1994), Canu Arnaf II (1995), Ynghylch Tawelwch (1998), Ôl Troed (2003), Y Fadarchen Hudol, (2005). This excludes the long Anti-Epic Hunllef Arthur 1986, (preceding the Casgliad o Gerddi) and the volume of poems Yr Amhortreadwy (2009). The latter was the last volume that appeared in conventional book form, before the series now appearing in parts on the Web, Bratiau Budron (2011, 2012, 2013).
Joseph P. Clancy said of the first volume of translations, and it holds true of this one: 'he shares with his fellow Welsh poets the confidence that the poet still has a central role in the Welsh community – as celebrant, satirist, and entertainer – as witness, conscience and consciousness – as the maker of verbal artefacts through which the community imaginatively realises its meaningful existence, its historical continuity, the possibility of its future.'
This selection includes some of Bobi Jones's most noteable poems such as 'During the Children's Party, Yearning, The Traffic Between Us, Landscape Without Hat, Watching a Small Storm, November, Right as Rain, Bilbao Cemetery, My Wails, The Women at the Pithead, Nobody, Portrait of an Unimaginative Visitor, A Wren in Aberystwyth Cemetery, Wasp, Racing Pigeons, Another Excuse, Love Sonnets of an Old Age Pensioner, The Chestnut Tree Deciding to Fly in May.'