'Writing the Self'
Poetry and Diaspora
- creative writing and a sense of place
A Celebration of Welsh Writing in English
from the Dyffryn Ogwen Writers’ Group
2020 online project.
The Dyffryn Ogwen Valley is home to many writers and poets. To celebrate this the National Lottery granted funding to Learning Links International to bring people together to create and share some new writing. Little did we think however, that instead of community workshops at Neuadd Ogwen, we would be linking across the wrold to bering people together on Zoom!
‘Writing the Self’ is based on work of people living or connected to the Ogwen Valley, which continues to inspire writers and poets and was once a major slate quarrying community. As well as making reference to the slate quarries, these poems and prose extracts chronicle the lives of the current inhabitants and voyagers whose observations emerge against the backdrop of the mountains of Snowdonia (Eryri).
Jessica Clapham is a lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Bangor University, and a freelance writing and wellbeing facilitator working with the local community and a wider online group of writers to explore the theme of ‘diaspora.’ She has presented at several national and international conferences and this anthology is a new venture which celebrates the history and mystery of the Ogwen Valley.
Members of our team have local roots and we recognise that the community of Bethesda has conflicts which can be traced back to the time of the quarrymen’s strike and we want to bring healing, as we know that the key indicators of community cohesion relate to how people feel about their local area. We know that the actions of the landed gentry of the Penrhyn Estates created this conflict and their implications, are still felt within the local community.
Learning Links International works with professionals and volunteers to challenge racism and hate crime by developing more understanding about our shared histories of colonialisation and oppression.
We have been working with professional specialists in community stress in both Jamaica and in North West Wales, and we have started to develop a way using poetry and writing that enables people to find safe ways to talk through the tensions and memories, in this case by bringing them into the context of the abuse of power involved in the Slave Trade, as the historical link between North West Wales and Jamaica is particularly strong.
The establishment of the Dyffryn Ogwen Writers Group and the publication of this anthology will support us to progress our community cohesion work. Since 2011 we have been working in the Bethesda area with Jamaica poet and reparation specialist, Yasus Afari, engaging with young people and adults to explore the shared history of the area with Jamaica and attempt to address some of the damaging echoes and memories that the divisions created by the treatment of their local workers which led to what was then the longest strike in British history. The Pennant family’s lavish expenditure on their lifestyle and on the folly of Penrhyn Castle, contrasted with the poverty and hardship experienced by local families in the community named after them in Pennants, Jamaica and communities that grew out of hardship and cruelty on the familiy's other plantations.
In September 2019, Yasus Afari worked in the school and with the community in Pennants in Jamaica, with the aims to establish a community writing / literacy development group there.
Then during October's recognition of Black History Month, Yasus Afari again worked in schools in the Ogwen Valley as part of the Learning Links International 'Jamaica Wales Alliance Black History Month Tour of Wales'.
Yasus Afari encouraged local school children to write poetry and he ran two workshops at Neuadd Ogwen, one for families and one for adults, bringing people in the community together to explore ways 'Build Bridges' and to link with the Pennants community in Jamaica. Following this we knew that there was significant interest in creating a focus for writing and publishing local voices from the Ogwen Valley, and to link with poets and writers in Jamaica.
