The biography of bohemian poet W H Davies (1871-1940), born in lowly circumstances in Newport, Gwent, who lived in America before returning to London where his work gained a immense popularity, including the first exploration of his volume Young Emma. 10 black-and-white photographs.

Cofiant y bardd bohemaidd W H Davies (1871-1940), a anwyd mewn tlodi yng Nghasnewydd ond a fu'n byw yn yr Amerig cyn dychwelyd i Lundain lle yr enillodd ei waith gryn boblogrwydd, yn cynnwys yr astudiaeth gyntaf o'i gyfrol Young Emma. 10 ffotograff du-a-gwyn.

The ‘Border Lines’ series continues apace under the editorship of John Powell Ward, and this is the twenty-third title to appear. Its subject, the Newport-born poet W. H. Davies, seems an ideal one for a series which explores the tension of the peculiar cultures found along the Welsh-English border from Severn to Dee, particularly so since Davies, although a man of Gwent, at least in a sentimental sense, had a highly ambivalent attitude to the land of his birth and never properly came to terms with it.

Born in the docklands of a town that was second only to Cardiff as a seafaring community, and brought up by grandparents, he set off for a hobo’s life in America, where, famously, he lost a leg while hitching a ride on a locomotive. It was his autobiography, unreliable almost from the first page, that made his name, and he was soon known in England as ‘the tramp-poet’, a bohemian who played the part to his own advantage.

Taken up by fashionable literary society, he was writing at a time when the Georgian poets were coming to the fore, though there is a darker streak of social consciousness in Davies’s work that sets him apart from that school. He became one of the most popular poets in England in the first half of the last century, if only for such sentimental verses as ‘The Kingfisher’ and ‘Leisure’, neither of which has lost its popularity: the first is still to be found in many a schools anthology and the second is now even used in a TV advertisement. The sculpture in the main shopping precinct of Newport is something else again.

Although lionised in literary London, Davies felt alienated from the artistic circles of his day and yearned for a simpler life. At the age of fifty he met and married a young prostitute and went to live with her in Sussex, then in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire. The courtship and marriage were described in his book Young Emma, which was not published until 1980, forty years after his death.

Lawrence Normand has tackled the complexities of Davies’s life with a fine regard for detail and contemporary mores. He explores themes touching on ethics, sex, national identity and, above all, social class, throwing a great deal of light on the writer’s personality and preoccupatuions. This looks like being the definitive study of W.H. Davies for many a year.

Meic Stephens

It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.

Gellir defnyddio’r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.