Absolute Optimist: Remembering Eluned Phillips
By Menna Elfyn
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Eluned Phillips was a passionate woman who ignited equally passionate responses in others. The second woman ever to wear the National Eisteddfod crown – Wales’ most prestigious Welsh language literary prize – she is the only woman to have won it twice. Unfortunately, her writing life was blemished by rumours over her work’s authorship.
Unusual among Welsh women of her generation, Eluned embraced an unconventional lifestyle which took her to pre-war London
and Paris, where she met artists Augustus John, Edith Piaf, and Pablo Picasso, as well as the writer Dewi Emrys, the dissolute ex-preacher and poet whose biography she published in 1971. In France she also fell in with a group of idealistic Bretons who introduced her to romantic love and nationalist politics.
This is an affectionate and yet critical biography of an unsung heroine of Welsh literature during a time of great change – taking her from rural Carmarthenshire to bohemian Paris and urban Los Angeles. She was often frowned upon, but never less than true to herself.
Award-winning poet Menna Elfyn examines Phillips’ life and work and argues convincingly that Eluned’s poetry is undoubtedly hers and more than worthy of two Crowns. Absolute Optimist was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year on publication in Welsh. It has been translated for Honno by Elinor Wyn Reynolds.
Menna Elfyn
Menna Elfyn is a poet and playwright who writes with passion of the Welsh language and identity. Her bilingual selections, Eucalyptus: Detholiad o Gerddi / Selected Poems 1978-1994 from Gomer and Perfect Blemish: New & Selected Poems / Perffaith Nam: Dau Ddetholiad & Cherddi Newydd 1995-2007 from Bloodaxe were followed by two bilingual collections, Murmur (2012) and Bondo (2017), also from Bloodaxe. She also co-edited The Bloodaxe Book of Modern Welsh Poetry (2003) with John Rowlands. When not travelling the world for readings and residencies, she lives in Carmarthen. She was Wales’s National Children’s Laureate in 2002.
Read more from Menna Elfyn
Murmur Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bondo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAbsolute Optimist: Remembering Eluned Phillips Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Absolute Optimist
Related ebooks
The Last Sheaf - Essays by Edward Thomas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJust for Kicks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings"Every Valley Shall Be Exalted": The Discourse of Opposites in Twelfth-Century Thought Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Age of Reformation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Attic Philosopher in Paris - Complete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDominic Ignatius Ekandem 1917-1995: The Prince Who Became a Cardinal, the Vanguard of Catholicism in Nigeria Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Lost Lady of Old Years Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWaynflete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Women and Men of 1926: A Gender and Social History of the General Strike and Miners' Lockout in South Wales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRuan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJ.O. Francis, Realist Drama and Ethics: Culture, Place and Nation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHelen with the High Hand - An Idyllic Diversion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBristol Bells: A Story of the Days of Chatterton Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Legend of Montrose by Sir Walter Scott (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Authentic Tawney: A New Interpretation of the Political Thought of R.H. Tawney Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJourney through a Tragicomic Century: The Absurd Life of Hasso Grabner Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rowley Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCrossing the floor: Reg Prentice and the crisis of British social democracy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Brooklyn Heights Promenade Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Welsh Witch: A Romance of Rough Places Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNineteenth-Century Women's Writing in Wales: Nation, Gender, Identity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWomen writers and Georgian Cornwall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Neighbors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUrania: A Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThorps in a Changing Landscape Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBloomsbury's Outsider: A Life of David Garnett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Butrint 3: Excavations at the Triconch Palace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Great Grievance: Ecclesiastical Lay Patronage in Scotland until 1750 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMichael Oakeshott as a Philosopher of the Creative: ...and Other Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsImagined Selves: Imagined Corners, Mrs Ritchie, Selected Non-Fiction Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5
Literary Biographies For You
Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Writer's Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People, Places, Things: My Human Landmarks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Devil and Harper Lee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Molly Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dad on Pills: Fatherhood and Mental Illness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Moveable Feast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5James Baldwin: A Biography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Distance Between Us: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Real Lolita: A Lost Girl, an Unthinkable Crime, and a Scandalous Masterpiece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5These Precious Days: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confessions of a Bookseller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespeare: The World as Stage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writers and Their Notebooks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love," The Unexpurgated Diary (1931–1932) of Anaïs Nin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Very Best of Maya Angelou: The Voice of Inspiration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Murder Your Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Absolute Optimist
0 ratings0 reviews