The National Eisteddfod is an annual celebration of Welsh culture and language. The event showcases music, dance, visual arts, literature, original performances, and much more.
We were delighted to hear that this year, alumna Lynne Blanchfield, won the Chair for Welsh Poetry at the Welsh Learners’ Eisteddfod, a nationwide competition run by Aberystwyth University. Lynne also won a second prize for her review of the Welsh novel and play ‘Llyfr Glas Nebo’.
Speaking about her former education, Lynne thanked her OHS teachers for their support.
“Thanks to an educational charity, I was sent to school in Oxford, because I was (sufficiently) intelligent and academic – to be honest I had suffered bullying because of this at one school. But in Oxford I began to flourish. The teachers were so kind, so committed to the girls, and thanks to them I caught up with the work, and afterwards I had enough success at A Level to go to university.”
Pen name: Forget-me-not
The Marsh (free verse)
Ancient land, mysterious;
A green desert
Stretching right to the horizon.
Who are you, who are wandering
Through wet and winding pathways
With no signposts?
Searching for deer or boar in order to survive
To dispatch them in a pavilion of wood and straw,
Ceremonially,
Singing ancient songs
To the wind, to the sky,
At one with the natural world –
Your Cors Caron.
Who are we, who are wandering
Through pathways dry and straight?
Following signposts
Through a town of tent and stand,
Searching for a burger, chips and chocolate
To survive till the end of the day.
Searching for Maes D
Or the Pavilion and the Ceremony,
To sing ancient songs,
With mike and lights and stage;
Enclosed in our plastic mansion,
At one with the artificial world –
Our Tregaron.
A huge congratulations to Lynne for this wonderful recognition of her work.