A guitar loosely strapped around his neck and long blonde curls falling across his blue grey eyes, Twm Morys sang the first poem he wrote as a school kid.
“Dacw wiwev yu y cwm
Sydd a qoluq reit ryw lwon”
He explains the meaning of his poem which is in Welsh – “There is a squirrel in the valley, who doesn’t look too happy.”
Twm, a Welsh poet and musician, who is in Thiruvananthapuram to attend the Hay Festival, talks about the significance of rhymes in his country, “We all like rhymes and our poetical tradition is more than 1,400 years old. It involves the court poetry of medieval times, metres and complicated rhymes.”
When he was young, he wrote about travel and love. And he did get to travel a lot when he became a television presenter.
“I did it in a poetical way,” smiles Twm. “Once when I was in Darjeeling, they let me drive a steam engine train. And I was good!” says Twm, who has also been to Sydney, Cairo, Italy, Peru and so on.
After observing life in these places, Twm would write about his experiences letting his imagination fill in the blanks.
“There were a small group of boys following us when we were in Cuzco in Peru. One boy was particularly fascinated by my binoculars. I finally gave them to him and he was so excited. He looked through them and said he could see his mother, and his house. I wrote about him and I added some things from my imagination. In my poem he became the president of Peru,’’ says Twm adding, “I like to make stories and sing them as well.”
For 21 years now, Twm has also been singing and writing for the folk-rock group ‘Bob Delyn a’r Ebillion’. “The group’s name means every harp and peg. Not much meaning there but it just sounds nice. The name could also mean Bob Dylan.”
In addition to three volumes of poetry mostly on Welsh mythology and folk tales, Twm has also written various literary reviews as a columnist.
