Idris Davies "A People Fit For Poetry" Poem animation

Heres a virtual movie of the celebrated Welsh Coal miner poet Idris Davies reading "A People Fit For Poetry" This poem was first published in his 1943 collection of poems "Angry Summer : A Poem Of 1926" was addressed to the Welsh people,but its message is universal in that it asks us all to open our minds to the true beauty of this world and in particular to seek out that which is truly worthy and to see beyond the common perception.This applies as much to life as to poetry for in poetry that which is deemed to be popular is so often mundane yet attains more public attention than that which is realy most meaningful and creative,and the big name poets eclipse the less publicised ones to the detriment of the true richness that poetry can offer.Alas the herd instinct rules in human circles as well.

Idris Davies (born 6 January 1905 Rhymney, died 6 April 1953), was a Welsh poet, originally writing in Welsh, but later writing exclusively in English. He was the only poet to cover significant events in the early 20th century in the South Wales Valleys and the South Wales coalfield, and from a perspective literally at the coalface.

He is now best known for the poem Bells of Rhymney,

He qualified as a teacher through courses at Loughborough College and the University of Nottingham. He took teaching posts in London during the Second World War, and then Wales, returning to the Rhymney Valley [1] in 1947. His second collection of poems was taken by T. S. Eliot for Faber and Faber (1945).

Idris Davies died from abdominal cancer in 1953, aged 48.
Kind Regards

Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2011

A People Fit For Poetry........

Make us, O Lord, a people fit for poetry,
And grant us clear voices to praise all noble achievement.
Make our guardians wiser than their fathers before them
Who sought the name below the easy jingle
And starved the poets without a name.
Give us fresh eyes to see Thy earth anew,
To see the animal and the grass and the water
As the first man saw them in the dawn.
Grant us, O Lord, Thy benediction
When we are restless and groping in the shadows,
And lead us to the shining mountains.
Make us worthy of the golden chorus
That the sons of God have always yearned to sing.
Make us, O Lord, a people fit for poetry.
Idris Davies

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