A collection of over 80 poems by Hilary Llewellyn-Williams, bringing together her first two collections, namely The Tree Calendar (1987) and Book of Shadows (1990), reflecting her love of nature and the environment and her deep interest in mythology and science.

Casgliad o dros 80 o gerddi gan Hilary Llewellyn-Williams, sef cyfuniad o'i dwy gyfrol gyntaf The Tree Calendar (1987) a Book of Shadows (1990), yn adlewyrchu ei chariad at fyd natur a'r amgylchedd a'i diddordeb dwfn mewn mytholeg a gwyddoniaeth.

There can be little doubt that nature, its physical beauty, its relevance to our lives and its power to inspire, are central to the poems in Hummadruz. Bringing together Hilary Llewellyn-Williams’s first two collections, The Tree Calendar and Book of Shadows, originally published in 1987 and 1990, this work makes impressive reading for anyone with a love of good poetry or a concern for the decline of the importance of nature in our high-tech, high-speed modern world.

Rich and varied in tone, language and imagery, the book reflects the writer’s intense and highly personal relationship to nature. This is made explicit in ‘Contradicting the Bishop’, where the poet explicitly reveals her anger against modernity’s displacement of the importance of nature, the so-called ‘hollowness of created things’, by contrasting this attitude with the added emotional, physical and spiritual dimension that a recognition of the interconnectedness of all life brings. As Llewellyn-Williams comments, ‘don’t be afraid - / be whole, not hollow, holy, hale; / don’t be forever staring / into old tombs and seeing nothingness’.

It is perhaps the poet’s desire to ward off this ‘nothingness’ that inspires the central groups of poems in both The Tree Calendar and Book of Shadows. In The Tree Calendar, a group of thirteen poems is based upon the thirteen months of the Celtic year, reflecting the ancient belief that trees, language and writing were mystically linked. These poems, through the author’s highly personal vision, reflect seasonal changes and the emotional and emotive effects of the passage of time. In Book of Shadows, the central collection of poems draws inspiration from and acts as homage to the Renaissance thinker Giordano Bruno, whose ideology also draws heavily on mysticism and the centrality and inter-relatedness of all life forms.

The bringing together of these two collections enables the reader to develop a deeper appreciation of the writer’s work, recognizing both the values inherent in her philosophy and the profound beauty of the poetry that enunciates these central concerns and ideas.

Hummadruz, with its rich imagery and reflective language, offers a thought-provoking and highly interesting journey that challenges and engages the reader throughout.

Petra Newman

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