Cynefin

Reimagine our relationship with the natural world through the Welsh poetic tradition.

At a time of biodiversity loss and climate grief, we need to reset our relationship with the natural world. Cynefin helps us hear the voices of people down the centuries who have, through poetry, expressed a different way of connecting with the living world around us.

Carwyn Graves explores how the Welsh poetic tradition offers a different view of nature and connecting to our place in the world, and demonstrates its power to help us address the challenges we face.

Find fresh perspectives from themes of grief and loss mediated through snow and the cuckoo’s song, to ecological sensibilities in medieval poems and the generosity of the water that drives the water wheel.

In a thousand years of poetry we see the natural world portrayed not as a pristine realm but a human home; bittersweet as well as welcoming. Above all Carwyn invites us through these poems, to encounter the living world - in seagulls and sheepflocks, a lake or wheatfield - not in the abstract but in all its sparkling specificity

‘This is timely work which positions Wales' rich and singular bardic tradition in a new light. Graves' musings carry an arresting sensibility, gleaning much needed insight and wisdom set against the tumult of the anthropocene.'

Owen Shiers, folk singer, Cynefin band

‘Carwyn Graves has mustered a surprising ally in the fight against nature degradation. His account of Welsh nature poetry shows what poets have always known: that we are part of nature, not aside from it. His emphasis on the social nature of Welsh poetry is joyful, a much-needed corrective in the age of extractive individualism.’

Gwyneth Lewis

‘A book of rare and critical wisdom at a time of extreme peril for our species. This is not just an analysis of a beautiful (and fascinating) poetic tradition, it is a map of the territory we must reclaim if we are to recover our place as part of nature and not its opposite.’

Ben Rawlence, author of The Treeline and Think Like a Forest: Letters to My Children from a Changing Planet