‘A enir cenedl ar unwaith?’
News from Rob Mimpriss
25th May 2015: An Undeserving Workman
The englyn, a strict-meter form with a caesura in the first line, nevertheless encompasses a wide range of moods within a single quatrain. This traditional englyn, which I presented to poetry students at Manchester University along with my own translation, has something of a glint in its eye:
Fy Nuw, gwêl finnau, Owen — trugarha
At ryw grydd aflawen
Fel y gwnawn pe bawn i’n ben
Nef, a thi o fath Owen.
My God, look on me, Owen — have mercy
On an undeserving workman
As I would, were I King of Heaven,
And you a paltry thing like Owen.
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Books by Rob Mimpriss
Pugnacious Little Trolls
‘freely and fiercely inventive short stories… supercharged with ideas.’
Jon Gower, Nation Cymru
Prayer at the End: Twenty-Three Stories
‘heaving with loss, regret and familial bonds.’
Annexe Magazine
For His Warriors: Thirty Stories
‘sketched with a depth and sureness of touch which makes them memorable and haunting.’
Caroline Clark, gwales.com
Reasoning: Twenty Stories
‘dark, complex, pensively eloquent’
Sophie Baggott, New Welsh Review
The Sleeping Bard: Three Nightmare Visions of the World, of Death, and of Hell
Translated by T. Gwynn Jones, with an introduction by Rob Mimpriss.
A Book of Three Birds
‘Lucid, skilful, and above all, of enormous timely significance.’
Jim Perrin
Dangerous Asylums
‘In this exemplary collaboration between medical science and imagination, lives preserved in official records, in the language and diagnoses of their times, are restored not just to light, but to humanity and equality. This anthology is a resurrection.’
Philip Gross
Hallowe’en in the Cwm: The Stories of Owen Wynne Jones
‘An invaluable translation.’
Angharad Price
Going South: The Stories of Richard Hughes Williams
Translated by Rob Mimpriss, with an introduction by E. Morgan Humphreys