Llongyfarchiadau!
National poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke, has won one of Britain's most prestigious awards, the gold medal for poetry.
She said she was "stunned", because she was "not accustomed to winning things".
The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, who served on the prize committee, saluted the award."Gillian Clarke has been such an important figure in our country's literary landscape, and her new work is so fresh, so relevant, that it's lovely to see her writing at the height of her powers," Duffy said. Gillian has been a friend of mine for many years. I am one of her greatest fans. She married a friend of mine from St Illtyds Peter Clarke.
On Thursday 15th October 2009 at the Newport Centre,Gillian Clarke, read out a poem commissioned by the Bevan Foundation to celebrate the 170th anniversary of the Chartist Uprising in Newport.
The March
For my late father-in-law, Glyndwr Thomas, miner, Oakdale colliery
Boots and rain drummed the tram-roads,
that bitter night in eighteen-thirty-nine,
potholed and stumbled with mud and stones.
Five thousand men, workers in iron and coal
from mine and furnace, Sirhowy, Ebbw, Rhymni,
heads bowed against the storm like mountain ponies.
Their bones ached from the shift, wind in the shaft,
the heat of the furnaces, yet on they marched,
their minds a blaze because their cause was right,
through darkness from Ebbw Vale, Blackwood, Pontypool,
faces frozen and stung by the lash of rain,
trudging the roads to Newport through the night.
At the Welsh Oak, Rogerstone, betrayed by daylight,
Frost’s men from the west, Williams's from the east,
Jones’s men never arrived. The rest struck on
to stand united, of one heart in the square
before the Westgate. Had they stood silent then,
had they not surged forward, had not been shaken
by rage against injustice, had they muzzled
the soldiers’ muskets with a multitude
of silence, had reason spoken,
those steely thousands might have won the day.
But they stormed the doors to set their comrades free,
and shots were fired, and freedom’s dream was broken.
A score dead. Fifty wounded. Their leaders tried,
condemned, transported. The movement, in disarray,
lost fifty years. Then came, at last, that shift
of power, one spoonful of thin gruel at a time,
from strong to weak, from rich to poor,
from men to women, like a grudged gift.
Star letter in today's Guardian
As Vince Cable could not hold responsibility for media policy because the decision on Murdoch is "quasi-judicial", what about Chris Huhne taking a quasi-judicial decision on nuclear power?
Vince Cable disclosed his lack of impartiality to the undercover journalists, whereas Huhne's declarations for the coalition's nuclear power commitment were very public; he declared the only issue was economic. Yet Huhneapproved two new nuclear reactor designs reactor designs under the "justification" regulations, and eight new reactor sites, for which he had to balance the benefits of nuclear electricity against the risks from accidents and sabotage, and the burden of nuclear waste on future generations. Environmentalists wanted a public inquiry under an independent inspector, but Huhne insisted on taking the decision himself. Why was he not removed as decision-maker, like Vince Cable? Is the difference the media spotlight or the threat of a Murdoch legal challenge? Ed Miliband's attack on Cable after his failure to attack Huhne certainly demonstrates lack of principle in the Labour opposition for transparent and unbiased decision-making.
Max Wallis
Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan
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