Llyfr y Mis - Ebrill

Pan lansiwyd y cylchgrawn dychanol Lol hanner canrif yn ôl doedd neb, mae’n siŵr, yn proffwydo rhyw oes hir iddo. Er cymaint roedd angen y fath gylchgrawn, doedd neb yn disgwyl i fenter a oedd yn ffrwyth gweledigaeth dau fyfyriwr pryfoclyd yng nghanol y 1960au oroesi. Ond dyna a wnaeth, gan fod yn dyst i gladdedigaeth amryw o gylchgronau ‘saffach’ fel Byw a Hamdden, Llais Llyfrau ac Asbri, Sŵn a Blodau’r Ffair, a’r cylchgrawn llenyddol Pori. 

Y ddau symbylydd oedd Robat Gruffudd a Penri Jones, cyd-fyfyrwyr ym Mangor, a ganwyd y babi sgrechlyd ac anynad yn Eisteddfod y Drenewydd yn 1965. Ac yn awr dyma adrodd y stori a chynnwys pigion y daith ‘dros hanner canrif o hiwmor, enllib a rhyw’. A do, bu’r tair elfen yn anhepgor i gynnwys, apêl a llwyddiant y cylchgrawn drwyddi draw. 

Bu’r hiwmor a’r rhyw yn ganolog i Lol o’r cychwyn. Ond weithiau pigwyd ambell swigen i’r fath raddau nes ennyn yr ail elfen. Yr enghraifft enwocaf o achos o enllib oedd cwyn Cynan am rifyn Eisteddfod y Bala 1967 pan fu’n rhaid rhwygo un tudalen arbennig allan o bob copi. 

Roedd yr achos hwnnw’n cyfuno’r drydedd elfen, sef rhyw. Bu lluniau merched hanner pyrcs yn anhepgor i’r cylchgrawn o’r dechrau. Ar ôl defnyddio lluniau ail-law, teimlwyd y dylid cynnwys lluniau modelau go iawn, a hynny’n arwain yn ei dro at ryfel, bron iawn, rhwng golygydd a ffotograffydd Lol a mam un o’r modelau yn Eisteddfod Hwlffordd 1972. O ganlyniad cafodd Lol ei hun ar dudalennau’r Times mewn erthygl ogleisiol gan Jilly Cooper. 

Dylid nodi nad ysgafnder oedd popeth. Na, dadlennwyd ambell sgŵp ac roedd safon rhai o’r cartwnau, eiddo’r brodyr Tegwyn Jones ac Elwyn Ioan yn arbennig, yn glasuron. Yn wir, daeth cael eu henwi yn Lol yn uchelgais ymhlith rhai o enwogion a lyfis Cymru a daeth y rhecsyn gwrthsefydliadol yn fath ar sefydliad ei hun. 

Mae hwn yn glamp o lyfr sy’n cynnwys y pigion, yn straeon a lluniau, gan eu gosod yn eu cyd-destun o ran hanes Cymru a hanes y byd. Cawn gan y golygydd grynhoad perffaith o elfennau Lol yn ei ragair. Bu’n ‘anweddus, yn blentynnaidd a dialgar, ond ar yr un pryd yn ffraeth, yn iachus ac yn hanfodol,’ meddai. ‘Rhoddodd y “rhecsyn anllad” ryw olwg twrch daear i ni ar hanes diwylliannol a gwleidyddol y cyfnod diwethaf.’ 

Ymlaen i’r hanner canrif nesaf! 

Lyn Ebenezer 

Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru. 

The Roots of Rock from Cardiff to Mississippi by Peter Finch

Photo by John Briggs from: http://www.peterfinch.co.uk/pfphoto6.htm

Praise for Peter Finch and his work:

"Since the early 1970s, Finch has been the principal innovator in Welsh poetry.....he deserves a Welsh knighthood." - Richard Kostelanetz, Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes
" Just this side of chaos" - Jon Gower

"almost a wave by himself...." -. Victor Golightly, NWR

" there's no-one writing quite like him in Wales, despite the emergence of younger urban poets in Cardiff and Swansea." -John Barnie, (on Food), Gwales.Com 
            
" I was lucky enough to catch Peter Finch, Welsh performance poet, poetry activist, editor and impresario (he's been central to the Welsh poetry underground scene since the 60s), at a show last week, and was blown away. Wild, witty, staccato and with a voice that hints of Hopkins' Hannibal with a velvet edge, he was doing "tens" without trying. His book Selected Poems is a good place to start" - Todd Swift, in Hungary's virtual magazine @gent

" The man is like Alka-Seltzer. His words (and sounds) fly at you and fizz in your face.....Breathless and manic with dramatic pedigree, and funnnier than most stand-ups, Finch's 'intros' had the audience howling at every turn." -John Elcock, (on a last Thursday performance at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea), Roundyhouse.

"In this book, Peter Finch gets the balance damn near spot on, casting the gentlest of aspersions, giving the knife a tiny twist where necessary, but always while staring you unwaveringly in the eye as a true poet. This is not just true poetry, however, it is also travel writing of the sharpest kind.....Finch's particular skill is his supreme ability to weave the past in with the present, and to that end his illustrations are often exquisite in their sparseness". - Mike Parker on Real Cardiff Two, Planet, April, 2005

"This is a marvellous book - one of the very best books about a city I have ever read. It makes me feel terribly old-fashioned - superficial too, because I have never actually lived in the cities I have written about. I skip most of the poems, which I don't understand, but everything else in it is gripping me so fast that I have momentarily suspended my first ever reading of Wuthering Heights." - Jan Morris, writing to the author.

Taken from: http://www.peterfinch.co.uk/aboutpf.htm

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Who is PeterFinch?

Photo by John Briggs from http://www.peterfinch.co.uk/pfphoto6.htm

Peter Finch is a full-time poet, critic, author, rock fan and literary entrepreneur living in Cardiff, Wales. Until recently he was Chief Executive of Literature Wales (formerly Academi), the Welsh National Literature Development Agency. As a writer he works in both traditional and experimental forms. He is best known for his declamatory poetry readings, his creative work based on his native city of Cardiff, his editing of Seren's Real series, and his knowledge of the UK poetry publishing scene. His latest work, however, traces the music all the way from Cardiff to Mississippi and back again. The Roots Of Rock appeared from Seren in November, 2015.

He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Architects of Wales (RSAW), a Fellow of the English Association (FEA) and a Fellow of Yr Academi Gymreig / The Welsh Academy. He won the Ted Slade Award for Service to Poetry in 2011.

In the sixties and seventies he edited the ground-breaking literary magazine, second aeon, exhibited visual poetry internationally and toured with sound poet Bob Cobbing. In the eighties and nineties he concerned himself with performance poetry, was a founder member of Cardiff's Cabaret 246 and of the trio Horse's Mouth. This was work with props, owing as much to theatre as it did to literature. In the new Millennium he was worked on psychogeographies and alternative guides to his native city of Cardiff. The city has become his obsession.

These days he is much in demand as a reader as well as a lecturer at festivals and venues up and down the country. You can get into Finch's performances. There's little deliberate obscurity. His talks on Cardiff and how it is with urban living are always entertaining.
From the early seventies until the late nineties he was treasurer of ALP, the Association of Little Presses. From 1968 to the mid-1980s he involved himself in the organising of weekly poetry readings in Cardiff. These events encouraged new writers and celebrated the established. Between 1975 and 1998 he ran the Arts Council of Wales's specialist Oriel Bookshop in Cardiff. In 1998 he was appointed Chief Executive of Yr Academi Gymreig/ The Welsh Academy - later Literature Wales. He stood down in 2011 to write full time.
Peter Finch has published more than 25 books of poetry. His most recent is Zen Cymru, published by Seren Books. His other titles include Food, Useful & Poems For Ghosts (Seren) and Antibodies (Stride). His The Welsh Poems appeared from Shearsman in 2006. His Selected Later Poems was published by Seren in 2007. A recent work is hammer lieder helicopter speak a sonic history of twentieth century music published as number one in Antonio Claudio Carvalho's revived futura series put out by p.o.w. ( poetry / oppose / war ). There are four examples of his poetry incorporated into public artworks in the city of Cardiff.
His prose works include a number of critical guides including How To Publish Your Poetry and How To Publish Yourself (Allison & Busby) as well his famous alternative handbooks, guides and literary rambles, Real Cardiff , Real Cardiff Two and Real Cardiff Three (Seren). With Grahame Davies he edited the anthology The Big Book of Cardiff (Seren). He is currently editing titles for Seren's Real Wales series and has published a book that takes in the whole country - Real Wales. His Edging The Estuary, (2013) is a psychogeographic unravelling of the Bristol Channel. His latest book is The Roots Of Rock From Cardiff To Mississippi And Back. He is currently working on a further book about Cardiff.

Nerys Williams's essay on Finch's work appears as Recycling the Avant-Garde in a Welsh Wordscape in Slanderous Tongues - Essays On Welsh Poetry in English 1970-2005, edited by Daniel G Williams and published by Seren, 2010.

Finch writes the self-publishing section for A&C Black's Writers' & Artists' Yearbook. He is a book reviewer and writes articles on Cardiff, Wales and the Severn Estuary. His poetry and criticism is widely published in magazines and anthologies.

His blog is at http://peterfinchpoet.blogspot.com/
His rock blog is at https://rootsofrock.wordpress.com/
His photography is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterfinch/
Taken from http://www.peterfinch.co.uk/aboutpf.htm

#ReadingDaringly #DarllenBeiddgar

Book of the Month - April 2016

 

The Roots of Rock from Cardiff to Mississippi and back by Peter Finch

A musical memoir:
Peter finch reflects on how popular music has shaped both his life and the culture in which he lives, from first hearing American music on the radio in his Cardiff home in the 1950s to the compendious and downloadable riches of digital files.  Finch has always gone to gigs and now he travels to the bars of Ireland, the clubs of New York, the plains of Tennessee, the flatlands of Mississippi and the mountains of North Carolina to get a feel for the culture from which his favourite music originates. The resulting book mixes musical autobiography with an exploration of physical places in western Europe and the US. It is a demonstration of the power of music to create a world for the listener that is simultaneously of and beyond the place in which it is heard.  The cast of musicians includes Muddy Waters, Taylor Swift, Bessie Smith, Tommy Steele, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Chris Tweed and singing cowboys. Each chapter is accompanied by a multitrack play list.

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