Inspiring day of brain stimulation in Hay.
Roy Hattersley was great value on David Lloyd George. He hailed him as one of the only three politicians of the 20th century who changed the political weather. The other two are Attlee and Thatcher. After Roy had given an upbeat answer to a question of mine on why Lloyd George's passion for devolution took a century to implement he hammered a patronising question that tried to denounce the Welsh Assembly and all its works.
I regret that I did not ask Roy the Kenneth Morgan question. If Lloyd George had been so great why did he bequeath us so many contemporary problems. Northern Ireland, Palestine and Iraq, like all things bright and beautiful, Lloyd George made them all.
The highlight of a full day was meeting two winners of the Dylan Thomas prize. Rachel Trezise (left in the picture) read from her book Sixteen shades of crazy. It's a startling, vivid picture of raw youth life in the Rhondda enlivened by booze and drugs. She is an immense home-grown talent.
This year's winner is a rugby player American woman who has written about her torments while her soldier husband was in Iraq. As the competition seeks, the words dance off the page. Try the imagery in this poem of Elyse Fenton.
Abade, Iraq
Sulphur-mouthed nightcrier, rooftop
harbinger, bringer of the gut shot
dawn-what I would do to keep you
at rifle's reach, stifle you, drown you
In the Tigris' muck and swill, touch you
aflame on its kerosene spine.
I could wait out artillery skitter, crater-
blast, stay here long into next empire
dreaming fingers and the Fertile Crescent
of thighs-if not for your voice
risen like Babel's ghost from the ruined fortress,
ash-haired rider come to tongue open
dawn's tortuous eye-
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