0:00:02 > 0:00:08This series is all about the conversation between Britain's poets and places.
0:00:08 > 0:00:13I've been travelling all around the country listening to those conversations.
0:00:13 > 0:00:15But for this programme, I'm going home.
0:00:17 > 0:00:19Croeso i Gymru! Welcome to Wales.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23Every year, thousands of people come to this beautiful landscape
0:00:23 > 0:00:28in Carmarthenshire on the trail of the superstar of Welsh poetry, Dylan Thomas.
0:00:28 > 0:00:33That over there is Laugharne, the village which he immortalised in Under Milk Wood.
0:00:33 > 0:00:35But that's not what's brought me here.
0:00:35 > 0:00:41I'm here to follow what I think is a much more exciting untold story about another Welsh poet.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44She's a young woman who was here at the same time as Thomas
0:00:44 > 0:00:49and also wrote some remarkable poetry about the place where she lived.
0:00:49 > 0:00:53Her name was Lynette Roberts, and her village is Llanybri.
0:00:53 > 0:00:59There are places that speak, telling the stories of us and them
0:00:59 > 0:01:03A village asleep, loaded with dream
0:01:03 > 0:01:07An ocean flicking its pages over the sand
0:01:07 > 0:01:09Eventually, we reply
0:01:09 > 0:01:13A conversation of place and page over time
0:01:13 > 0:01:18Inscribing the map so that each, in turn, might hold the line.
0:01:26 > 0:01:29The poet Lynette Roberts lived between 1939 and 1948
0:01:29 > 0:01:32in the village of Llanybri in Carmarthenshire.
0:01:33 > 0:01:38While she was there, despite the tribulations of war and poverty,
0:01:38 > 0:01:42she wrote a number of wonderful and highly original poems.
0:01:42 > 0:01:50At the time, the great writer Robert Graves said that she was one of the few true poets now writing.
0:01:50 > 0:01:55However, when she left the village, her poetry petered out and was soon largely forgotten.
0:01:55 > 0:02:02That is until very recently, when her poems were re-published to an enthusiastic reception.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06Lynette Roberts was looking at the world as though she'd never seen it before.
0:02:06 > 0:02:12I'd never read a collection of her poems until fairly recently and I realise what I'd been missing.
0:02:12 > 0:02:17Marvellous, incredibly idiosyncratic body of work
0:02:17 > 0:02:22that was produced by a fascinating character.
0:02:23 > 0:02:26This film is about one of my favourite of those poems.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30It's called simply Poem From Llanybri.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34It's a fantastically visual poem, a beautiful and surprising poem.
0:02:34 > 0:02:39It's also a warm invitation to come and visit her.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43And I suppose, in many ways, that's what I'm doing now is accepting that invitation.
0:02:48 > 0:02:51Between now and then I will offer you
0:02:51 > 0:02:53A fistful of rock cress fresh from the bank
0:02:53 > 0:02:59The valley tips of garlic, red with dew cooler than shallots
0:02:59 > 0:03:03A breath you can swank in the village when you come
0:03:03 > 0:03:08At noon-day, I will offer you a choice bowl of cawl
0:03:08 > 0:03:13Served with a lover's spoon and a chopped spray of leeks or savori fach
0:03:13 > 0:03:17Not used now In the old way, you'll understand.
0:03:23 > 0:03:28It was especially surprising for me to read that poem and to discover such an original voice.
0:03:28 > 0:03:35Because if there's one landscape that I thought I knew in terms of poetry it was South Wales, where I'm from.
0:03:35 > 0:03:41And yet here was an original voice, a unique voice that I'd never heard of before. Here's the sign.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44"Llanybri, please drive carefully."
0:03:44 > 0:03:46I'll do my best.
0:03:46 > 0:03:49And here's Llanybri itself,
0:03:49 > 0:03:51which I must admit
0:03:51 > 0:03:52looks pretty ordinary.
0:03:52 > 0:03:55I suppose there should be no surprise about that,
0:03:55 > 0:03:58it was a very ordinary village when she lived here as well.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01I'm sort of looking for her house.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04This might be it actually, yes.
0:04:04 > 0:04:06It's called Ty Gwyn, which means White House in Welsh.
0:04:06 > 0:04:11And this was where she lived and wrote, all through the war years.
0:04:11 > 0:04:14Plasnewydd.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16You want to know about my village?
0:04:16 > 0:04:20You should want to know, even if you don't want to know about my village
0:04:20 > 0:04:22My village is very small
0:04:22 > 0:04:26You could pass it with a winning gait
0:04:26 > 0:04:27Smile.
0:04:28 > 0:04:35Lynette Roberts came to live in Llanybri in 1939 with her new husband, the writer Keidrych Rhys.
0:04:35 > 0:04:39The village back then was a poor farming community of no more than 200 people.
0:04:39 > 0:04:44It must have been an incredible shock for Lynette to move here to Llanybri
0:04:44 > 0:04:49in October 1939, completely different to anything she'd experienced before.
0:04:49 > 0:04:55She'd been living in London before she came here, but she was brought up on the other side of the world.
0:04:57 > 0:05:02Lynette was born in Buenos Aires, 30 years earlier in 1909.
0:05:02 > 0:05:04Her father was head of a big railway company and she was brought up
0:05:04 > 0:05:09in a world of horses, yachts and glamorous society.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12Her mother died of typhoid when she was 13
0:05:12 > 0:05:16and she and her sister were sent away to boarding school in England,
0:05:16 > 0:05:21after which she went to study at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London.
0:05:21 > 0:05:27From there, she trained as a florist with Constance Spry before setting up her own business.
0:05:27 > 0:05:31She met Keidrych Rhys at a party for Poetry London.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35She wrote that he was charming and spoke like a prince.
0:05:38 > 0:05:43Only a few months later in October 1939, Lynette and Keidrych moved to
0:05:43 > 0:05:46Carmarthenshire, where they married in the village of Llansteffan.
0:05:48 > 0:05:53So this was the church that Lynette and Keidrych got married in when they came here?
0:05:53 > 0:06:01Absolutely. Cupid's arrow found its mark and the knot was tied, I do believe, in 1939.
0:06:01 > 0:06:06They were joining an artistic community which was already thriving in Llansteffan.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09And of course Dylan Thomas was Keidrych's best man.
0:06:09 > 0:06:14After their wedding, they stayed in Llansteffan for only a couple of months
0:06:14 > 0:06:19before being obliged to move up the hill to a small cottage in Llanybri.
0:06:19 > 0:06:24Judith Thomas is the current owner of Ty Gwyn and she invited me in to have a look round.
0:06:24 > 0:06:27Well, this our new part of the cottage.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30This wasn't here when we first came.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34The garden was here, you know, because she writes a lot about being in the vegetable garden.
0:06:34 > 0:06:38It's amazing to see, it hasn't changed from the photographs I've seen.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41This garden has gone through two or three changes since Lynette.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45And we've more or less put it back where it was, almost.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48We know a great deal about Lynette's time here
0:06:48 > 0:06:51thanks to the beautifully detailed observations in the journal
0:06:51 > 0:06:53that she kept while she lived in the village.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57June 24th 1940.
0:06:57 > 0:07:04Today it did not rain so my plants, which have been transplanted, are beginning to look very flat.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07Gardening is a disheartening job as the work relies too much on
0:07:07 > 0:07:11the good will of God, and he is not always co-operating.
0:07:11 > 0:07:16Will it be possible to have a look at the part of the house that would have been here when she was here?
0:07:16 > 0:07:21I'll show you the only thing that's really pure that's left.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23Now that I actually recognise from her paintings.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26That's the fireplace that was here when she was here.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29- Absolutely.- It's actually quite strange to stand here and think that
0:07:29 > 0:07:32a lot of the work that we're talking about, she actually wrote here.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35You know, on that one wooden table that she writes about.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38- That's right.- Where she washed and she cooked and she wrote.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41I came here early '80s and it was like going back 50 years.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44Did they still have the livestock coming through the village then?
0:07:44 > 0:07:45Yes, the herds would go through.
0:07:45 > 0:07:47Everyone had a pig in the garden.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50- Has it gone?- Yeah. - Yeah.- But the sharing hasn't gone.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52- Right.- The community hasn't gone.
0:07:53 > 0:07:55While Lynette was living in the village,
0:07:55 > 0:08:02she gave birth to two children who she blessed with good Welsh names - Angharad and Pridyn.
0:08:02 > 0:08:09They've both made a trip back to the village to talk to me about their mother and their time in Llanybri.
0:08:09 > 0:08:16Or I can offer you Cwmcelyn spread with quartz stones from the wild scratchings of men
0:08:16 > 0:08:20You will have to go carefully with clogs or thick shoes for
0:08:20 > 0:08:22it's treacherous, the fen
0:08:22 > 0:08:26The east and west marshes also have bogs.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29So you brought me to this somewhat windy and cold field.
0:08:29 > 0:08:31But where exactly are we, what is this place?
0:08:31 > 0:08:34This is Cwmcelyn, that Mum wrote about in her poem.
0:08:34 > 0:08:39And she used to bring us down here, down the lane for a walk, down in a pushchair.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41And this was this lovely open space.
0:08:41 > 0:08:44How strong are your memories from that period?
0:08:44 > 0:08:46The thing I remember is cattle were always
0:08:46 > 0:08:50through the streets all the time, right in the centre of the village.
0:08:50 > 0:08:53So it was always cow dung that you were walking through.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56And they were going backwards and forwards to be milked.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58She was very interested in birds.
0:08:58 > 0:08:59She had a great deal of books on birds.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02You know Wetherby's books on birds.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04She was very interested in estuary birds.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08What I found so remarkable about her work is when she's studying a
0:09:08 > 0:09:10bird it isn't enough to just to be looking at it and feeding it.
0:09:10 > 0:09:12She actually wants to taste its flesh.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16- You do get this sense of someone... - She must have been very hungry.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19Well, yes, I suppose there's one, the fact that she was hungry.
0:09:19 > 0:09:23- But this sense of someone who wanted to experience life with all five senses.- Yeah.
0:09:23 > 0:09:26She missed some of the food from Argentina and they have
0:09:26 > 0:09:30guava jelly and they have a quince paste that they have with cheese.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33And she used to put jam on cheese which we thought was disgusting,
0:09:33 > 0:09:37to try and get that taste that she had from her childhood.
0:09:37 > 0:09:42God, to go from guava jelly to Llanybri, that's a hell of a contrast, isn't it?
0:09:42 > 0:09:46Yeah, because obviously South America's light and bright and colourful.
0:09:46 > 0:09:48And, you know, noisy and this is...
0:09:48 > 0:09:50But that's interesting that you say that
0:09:50 > 0:09:54because something else that she brings into this landscape through her writing
0:09:54 > 0:09:56- is an incredible sense of colour, isn't it?- Yes.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58Yeah, she was very observant, right to the end.
0:09:58 > 0:10:03She'd notice your coloured scarf, she'd notice all different colours in it that we wouldn't even see.
0:10:08 > 0:10:13Lynette wasn't just a poet, she was interested in art in every possible form.
0:10:13 > 0:10:19She'd studied drawing and painting at college and when she came to Llanybri she continued to paint.
0:10:19 > 0:10:23Her painter's eye is powerfully evident in her poetry
0:10:23 > 0:10:26and I talked about this with local artist Ozzie Osmond.
0:10:26 > 0:10:31What is it exactly about the visual quality of her work that really strikes you?
0:10:32 > 0:10:35She has this enormous sweep of eye.
0:10:35 > 0:10:37And it's that discipline that she had than enabled
0:10:37 > 0:10:44this extraordinary woman to come in and out of focus, change, shift, move, follow movement.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47The idea of movement in her poem is extraordinary and the idea of...
0:10:47 > 0:10:52It's almost like you're watching, reading a poem through a pair of binoculars or a microscope.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56Lynette Roberts was looking at the world as though she'd never seen it before.
0:10:56 > 0:11:00She was looking at it in a way normal people do not look at the world. Extraordinary.
0:11:00 > 0:11:03I was just wondering if it's possible to pin point a few of the aspects
0:11:03 > 0:11:05about that village that you think worked for her.
0:11:05 > 0:11:10I think Llanybri, in the sense, is a village almost, you might say, with a kind of eternal winter.
0:11:10 > 0:11:16Whereby in a sense things that are interesting, colourful, decorative, pretty if you like,
0:11:16 > 0:11:23attractive, scented, sound, it's increased because it's on a plainer backdrop, in a sense.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26She could see something in that village that was very, very special.
0:11:26 > 0:11:28And it was, I think. You know, and it still is.
0:11:31 > 0:11:35Through Lynette's eyes, Llanybri was a strange and exotic world.
0:11:35 > 0:11:40By the same token, she seems to have cut a pretty exotic figure for the locals.
0:11:40 > 0:11:46Elenid Roberts still vividly remembers Lynette's weekly visits to Llansteffan.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50We'd come down to watch the 6:30 bus coming down from
0:11:50 > 0:11:55Llanybri and wait, hopefully, to see whether a couple got out of the bus.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58The couple being Keidrych Rhys and Lynette Roberts.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01And this was the main purpose of this long wait.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05We had no watches, so we might have been there a long time.
0:12:05 > 0:12:07Anyway, off they would get.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10Keidrych Rhys, large, shambling.
0:12:10 > 0:12:17Lynette Roberts, tall, slender and walked with the elegant gait of a dancer.
0:12:17 > 0:12:22Lynette had beautiful long, flowing skirts, ankle length skirts,
0:12:22 > 0:12:26And we'd never seen anything thing like that other than on the films.
0:12:26 > 0:12:31They'd be coming down to have a bath at the house of Stanley Rose who was head of the art school.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33And they lived in a posh house with a bath.
0:12:33 > 0:12:39Elenid is a local historian and I talked to her about what life was like in Llanybri in the 1940s.
0:12:39 > 0:12:44What sort of a place was Llanybri when they moved in there in 1939?
0:12:44 > 0:12:50It was a very isolated community and unlike, Llansteffan, most of the people really were natives.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54They'd have been either there or in the area for generations.
0:12:54 > 0:12:59It was entirely Welsh speaking, unlike Llansteffan which had always been anglicised.
0:12:59 > 0:13:06The people were mainly farmers, I would say that about 97% of the people were linked with the land.
0:13:06 > 0:13:07Not very wealthy.
0:13:07 > 0:13:11Diseases were rife and anything like tuberculosis, measles,
0:13:11 > 0:13:15whatever was going, the poor children had them there.
0:13:15 > 0:13:21The houses were small for the most part and large families lived in over-crowded conditions.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24And this was something that Roberts was very much aware of, wasn't it?
0:13:24 > 0:13:27She was very much aware of the conditions, yes.
0:13:27 > 0:13:30The houses might have been picturesque, but they were unhygienic.
0:13:30 > 0:13:33Her work seems to blossom in that environment, doesn't it?
0:13:33 > 0:13:36Yes, it does. Whatever was there inspired her.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40During the war years it must have felt like a relatively safe place to be as well?
0:13:40 > 0:13:42Oh, that is certainly true, yes.
0:13:42 > 0:13:45On the other hand, when you think that she'd been brought up in a
0:13:45 > 0:13:52privileged environment with servants and there she was in a two roomed cottage with no running water.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55- And having to come down here for her weekly bath. - Having to come down for a bath.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58I mean, the woman was remarkable that she managed.
0:13:58 > 0:14:05Although Lynette had enormous strength of character, living in Llanybri was undoubtedly tough.
0:14:05 > 0:14:08They had very little money. It was a big, big problem.
0:14:08 > 0:14:13And in the first entry in her diary she'd been married not even a month.
0:14:13 > 0:14:17She was married on October 4th and the first entry is November 3rd.
0:14:17 > 0:14:22And she's already complaining about scrubbing the floor and saying, "I hate him."
0:14:22 > 0:14:26So it didn't take long for reality to...
0:14:26 > 0:14:31I mean, of course there was this one incident where she was accused of being a German spy during the war.
0:14:31 > 0:14:33What was the story behind that?
0:14:33 > 0:14:40We heard from someone who was a child in Llansteffan, but her father was the policeman.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43And she said they saw a light flashing when it was blackout.
0:14:43 > 0:14:48And it turned out it was Mum's cat that was sort of on the torch somehow.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51- I don't quite understand it. - Playing with the torch.
0:14:51 > 0:14:54But I suppose it was a time when people were suspicious.
0:14:56 > 0:15:02But despite the poverty which she witnessed and experienced, as well as the estrangement which she often
0:15:02 > 0:15:09felt as an outsider in this small community, Lynette clearly developed a strong connection with the village.
0:15:09 > 0:15:14Her passion for the place comes through powerfully in her Poem From Llanybri.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18A poem that she wrote for a young Welsh poet and infantry man,
0:15:18 > 0:15:22Alun Lewis, who she met in the summer of 1940.
0:15:22 > 0:15:27It was a meeting that clearly left a strong impression on both of them.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30What I've just got hold of here are some of
0:15:30 > 0:15:37the letters that Lynette wrote to Alun Lewis after they met and they make absolutely fascinating reading.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41And the first thing that really springs off the page is how much fun she was.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45She was obviously an incredibly lively, enthusiastic character.
0:15:45 > 0:15:51I mean, the one here that I'm reading the opening line is, "Mr Lewis you are an utter swine.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55"But I liked your letter. Odd ways, odd people.
0:15:55 > 0:15:59"I too wrote you a poem but you won't like it so I shan't send it yet.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02"Not today anyhow, it isn't quite finished yet."
0:16:02 > 0:16:05And so you can tell from that that although they've only met once they
0:16:05 > 0:16:11obviously had a very special meeting, that they recognised something in each other. There was a real spark.
0:16:11 > 0:16:14The letter closes with this quite stunning paragraph
0:16:14 > 0:16:19where she writes to Alun, "I like your letters, Alun, but I should be frightened if you came too near.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23"I might fall in love with you, I might be disillusioned.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27"Of the two I prefer the first, the second is horrible.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30"It hurts me to say this but I don't know why.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34"I could cry but perhaps it is just tiredness, I don't know. Bye bye, Alun.
0:16:34 > 0:16:39"I'll send you your poem, the one I wrote to you, some other day."
0:16:39 > 0:16:43And then she signs off quite simply, "I grieve Alun, Lynette."
0:16:43 > 0:16:47So if there was any doubt about how she feels towards him, how
0:16:47 > 0:16:51she feels about their relationship at this stage, then that
0:16:51 > 0:16:54way of signing off really hammers it home.
0:16:54 > 0:17:00Shortly after having written that letter, she sent Alun this poem.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02Poem From Llanybri.
0:17:04 > 0:17:08If you come my way that is Between now and then I will
0:17:08 > 0:17:12offer you a fistful of red cress, fresh from the bank
0:17:12 > 0:17:15The valley tips of garlic, red with dew
0:17:15 > 0:17:17Cooler than shallots
0:17:17 > 0:17:20A breath you can swank in the village when you come
0:17:20 > 0:17:26At noon day, I will offer you a choice bowl of cawl
0:17:26 > 0:17:31Served with a lover's spoon and a chopped spray of leeks or savori fach
0:17:31 > 0:17:35Not used now In the old way, you'll understand
0:17:35 > 0:17:39The din of children singing through the eyelet sheds
0:17:39 > 0:17:42Ringing smith hoops, chasing the butt of hens
0:17:42 > 0:17:45Or I can offer you
0:17:45 > 0:17:50Cymcelyn, spread with quartz stones from the wild scratchings of men
0:17:50 > 0:17:54You will have to go carefully with clogs or thick shoes
0:17:54 > 0:17:56For it's treacherous, the fen
0:17:56 > 0:18:00The east and west marshes also have bogs
0:18:00 > 0:18:04Then I'll do the lights, fill the lamp with oil
0:18:04 > 0:18:07Get coal from the shed, water from the well
0:18:07 > 0:18:12Pluck and draw pigeon with crop of green foil
0:18:12 > 0:18:15This your good supper from the lime tree fell
0:18:17 > 0:18:21A sit by the hearth with blue flames rising
0:18:21 > 0:18:23No talk,
0:18:23 > 0:18:25just a stare at time
0:18:25 > 0:18:32Gathering healed thoughts, pool insight like swans sailing peace and sound around the home
0:18:32 > 0:18:37Offering you a nights rest and my day's energy.
0:18:40 > 0:18:42You must come,
0:18:42 > 0:18:44start this pilgrimage
0:18:44 > 0:18:45Can you come?
0:18:45 > 0:18:51Send an ode or elegy in the old way and raise our heritage.
0:18:53 > 0:19:00On one level this poem seems like such a gentle conversational invitation to a quiet homely supper.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04But underneath, there's a note of intense yearning for the visitor.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07An undercurrent that's certainly intensified,
0:19:07 > 0:19:10given what we know about Lynette's feelings for Alun from her letters.
0:19:10 > 0:19:15Lynette is certainly offering him all of the physical aspects of the poem.
0:19:15 > 0:19:21The food that she can pick from the area, the local knowledge about the fens and the bogs.
0:19:21 > 0:19:25But she's also offering him this opportunity at the very end of the poem.
0:19:25 > 0:19:30"Send an ode or elegy in the old way and raise our heritage."
0:19:30 > 0:19:34So what's she's really saying to him is here is a chance
0:19:34 > 0:19:39for us as two poets from Wales, to write out of the old ways,
0:19:39 > 0:19:46out of Welsh history, but to write to the best of our ability poetry that is uniquely Welsh.
0:19:48 > 0:19:55Lewis did eventually visit Llanybri but when he came it was with his new wife, Gwyno.
0:19:55 > 0:20:00Tragically four years later he shot himself whilst serving in Burma,
0:20:00 > 0:20:04a tragedy that was only mitigated by the fact that by then he had certainly
0:20:04 > 0:20:07raised our heritage, as Lynette put it,
0:20:07 > 0:20:13having written some of the best poetry to come out of the war.
0:20:13 > 0:20:17Gillian Clarke is the national poet of Wales.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20I wondered what she had to say about the poem that Lynette wrote for Alun.
0:20:20 > 0:20:24What is it about Poem From Llanybri that
0:20:24 > 0:20:27you think really makes it work so successfully as a poem?
0:20:27 > 0:20:33Because she's using a kind of colloquial language as well, as well as a highly formal language.
0:20:33 > 0:20:37I mean, it rhymes. The rhythm is very interesting.
0:20:37 > 0:20:42Her punctuation is spot on because she
0:20:42 > 0:20:46is deliberately not using it when she wants to run the language on.
0:20:46 > 0:20:50She's got some inversions in it, which I love.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53Like, you know, "It's treacherous, the fen."
0:20:53 > 0:20:58I could hear my Aunty Phyllis saying that, whereas a normal, proper,
0:20:58 > 0:21:02educated English sentence should be, "The fen is very treacherous."
0:21:02 > 0:21:06But that would not make it as treacherous as she makes it.
0:21:06 > 0:21:13How important do you think her learning of the Welsh traditional poetry forms is for her?
0:21:13 > 0:21:18The poem from Llanybri, which is a poem of invitation.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22I think I'm right in saying that is already an existing Welsh form?
0:21:22 > 0:21:23Yeah, I think so. I think you're right.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27It's very biotic isn't it? And it's beautiful that it's to a poet.
0:21:27 > 0:21:29And yet she's written in quite casual language.
0:21:29 > 0:21:35It's formed but it's also, at the same time, quite colloquial and like a letter, which is so modern.
0:21:35 > 0:21:40Her experience in the village was almost entirely bracketed by the Second World War.
0:21:40 > 0:21:42She was, in effect, a war poet.
0:21:42 > 0:21:45I always feel that Lynette Roberts, in many ways, saw more of the war
0:21:45 > 0:21:48than someone like Alun Lewis who she was writing to in this poem.
0:21:48 > 0:21:52Because of Alun Lewis and wonderful poets like that,
0:21:52 > 0:21:56we never got the picture of what was happening
0:21:56 > 0:22:02when there wasn't any water, when the bread ran out, when refugees moved in, when people moved from
0:22:02 > 0:22:06their houses and there were no more houses and there was such poverty.
0:22:06 > 0:22:12What we all forget is Britain was so poor at the end of the war.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15- And she really does offer a glimpse of that other side, doesn't she?- Yes.
0:22:15 > 0:22:19And actually even this poem, Poem From Llanybri,
0:22:19 > 0:22:26is a war poem of sorts in that she is offering a moment of refuge from all of that, from all of that conflict.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29Really she's offering that to Alun Lewis, isn't she?
0:22:29 > 0:22:36She is. She's offering that, and also what she's offering him isn't a rump steak and a bottle of wine.
0:22:36 > 0:22:40It's things taken from the hedgerow and scraped from the fields.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43It's a pigeon that's fallen from the tree.
0:22:43 > 0:22:45Absolutely, a pigeon fallen from the tree.
0:22:45 > 0:22:52And I wonder how many poets have ever plucked and cooked a pigeon.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55I'll go away and do that now, Gillian.
0:23:01 > 0:23:05This portrait of rural village life, Poem From Llanybri, was published in
0:23:05 > 0:23:091944 in Lynette Roberts' first and only collection.
0:23:09 > 0:23:13Her editor was the poetry giant T.S. Elliott.
0:23:13 > 0:23:16How important do you think it was that when your mother started to
0:23:16 > 0:23:20write, she was supported by probably one of the greatest poetry editors
0:23:20 > 0:23:26ever, and certainly the most important editor at that time, in T.S. Elliot?
0:23:26 > 0:23:29It was an amazing stroke of luck, wasn't it?
0:23:29 > 0:23:31Do you think it was luck or...?
0:23:31 > 0:23:36We went there and there was this huge ebony elephant propped up against the door.
0:23:36 > 0:23:40And I tried to steal it. Lynette was talking about poetry at the time.
0:23:40 > 0:23:45She was trying to be serious about her future and we just went around wrecking everything.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48Stealing things, crying and blabbing and all the rest of it.
0:23:48 > 0:23:50She said we spat and screamed and cried.
0:23:50 > 0:23:52I don't remember any of it myself.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54But, you know, apparently it's true.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58Do you think that she knew the quality of her work would always out?
0:23:58 > 0:24:00Yeah, I think she did think she was special.
0:24:00 > 0:24:02Yeah, she thought she was.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06- She thought she was a genius, you know. She was convinced of it.- Yeah.
0:24:09 > 0:24:15In 1948, Lynette split up with Keidrych and she and the children moved across the estuary to a
0:24:15 > 0:24:20caravan that was parked in a field below the graveyard in Laugharne.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24Apart from a fiercely modernist longer poem published in 1951,
0:24:24 > 0:24:28the move from Llanybri seems to have brought Lynette's poetry to an end.
0:24:28 > 0:24:34For nine years, the landscape of Llanybri had given Lynette a subject and a focus for her writing.
0:24:34 > 0:24:39But when her connection with the village came to an end, so did her poetry.
0:24:39 > 0:24:43Kathryn Gray is the editor of The New Welsh Review.
0:24:43 > 0:24:48Here's another invitation, another village and a different kind of outsider.
0:24:48 > 0:24:50Joyrider.
0:24:50 > 0:24:54Come, hot wired from the city down a one car lane
0:24:54 > 0:24:58Over the keystone bridge that cannot take the headlong rush
0:24:58 > 0:25:03Past the parish church where the dead were married, with your due disregard.
0:25:03 > 0:25:07Come past chrysanthemum baskets and post office
0:25:07 > 0:25:09The adjoining grocers
0:25:09 > 0:25:14Be in the byways, kick up that stereo, hand fumbling in a glove compartment
0:25:14 > 0:25:17Cassette reams spinning out the window
0:25:17 > 0:25:22Come, accelerate forward into pitch on less than a quarter of a tank left
0:25:22 > 0:25:26As wheels take flight from the ditch, leave behind the oaks
0:25:26 > 0:25:30The sign, "Thank you for driving considerately through our village."
0:25:31 > 0:25:35Come, while these lights come on within the regularity of their living rooms
0:25:35 > 0:25:39As curtains part, jest post lapsarian until now
0:25:39 > 0:25:46quite unaware that there were silences, laws observed to be disturbed.
0:25:46 > 0:25:50At the time that Lynette Roberts is writing, you get a very strong
0:25:50 > 0:25:54sense that she is connected with other writers and they are all men.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58- Yes.- There's Dylan Thomas, there's Alun Lewis, there's Robert Graves.
0:25:58 > 0:26:00- Where are the women?- Exactly.
0:26:00 > 0:26:03And she was very much a woman in a man's world, wasn't she?
0:26:03 > 0:26:05Absolutely, absolutely.
0:26:05 > 0:26:07She was totally isolated.
0:26:07 > 0:26:14And, when you consider the incredible vicissitudes of balancing home and hearth,
0:26:14 > 0:26:19child rearing and becoming a writer, you can hardly blame others for
0:26:19 > 0:26:22thinking that perhaps it couldn't be a career for them.
0:26:22 > 0:26:27What makes her unique is she did in fact juggle all those things.
0:26:27 > 0:26:31I think back then not only was it so difficult to do all those
0:26:31 > 0:26:35things but of course socially it wouldn't have been something
0:26:35 > 0:26:40that society looked on in a positive way.
0:26:40 > 0:26:47And certainly for Lynette Roberts, literature was very much seen as a man's work.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52And I think never more so than in Wales where the domination
0:26:52 > 0:26:59of the male line, particularly in poetry, was immense.
0:26:59 > 0:27:02If you were to be talking to a young writer now, what would
0:27:02 > 0:27:07be the three reasons that you would give to them why they should really go and have a look at her work?
0:27:07 > 0:27:11If you picked up a handful of poems at random what would reveal itself
0:27:11 > 0:27:15is what an acute observer of the natural world she is.
0:27:15 > 0:27:19And there's this great lushness and expansiveness, too.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22So there's something, in many ways very naturalistic.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25And you go, "Yes, that's it exactly."
0:27:25 > 0:27:29And yet it has this marvellous sweeping feel. And I think,
0:27:29 > 0:27:36like many writers who fall into decline, in some respects the world wasn't quite ready for her.
0:27:42 > 0:27:47After the caravan at Laugharne, Lynette and the children moved to England.
0:27:47 > 0:27:5120 years later, she returned to Llanybri.
0:27:51 > 0:27:55But by this time, she was diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia
0:27:55 > 0:27:59and she was eventually committed into a hospital in nearby Carmarthen.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03In 1989 she moved to a residential home in the village of Ferryside,
0:28:03 > 0:28:10living there till the age of 85 when she broke her hip while dancing, causing a heart attack.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15She was buried back in Llanybri.
0:28:17 > 0:28:23For me, spending time with Lynette Roberts' voice has been a really electrifying experience.
0:28:23 > 0:28:31I truly think that she's a vital and a vitalising part of what she says in Poem From Llanybri is our heritage.
0:28:31 > 0:28:35And I only hope that now her work is being re-published that more
0:28:35 > 0:28:40people will accept her invitation to spend some more time with her and her writing.
0:29:05 > 0:29:08Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd