The Angry Summer: A Poem of 1926

(Hardback)

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Description

Through the voices of ordinary people caught up in the struggle, "The Angry Summer" graphically illustrates the plight of the miners and their families during the six-month-long miners' strike of 1926 - 'the summer of soups and speeches'. Idris Davies himself left school at the age of fourteen to become a miner and it was the strike of 1926 that forced him to look elsewhere for work. He is perhaps the most authentic socialist poet of the inter-war years to write in English, because he speaks out of the experience of his own working-class community. This volume presents for the first time a properly annotated edition of the poem, an introduction by Tony Conran explaining the biographical, historical and literary background, and is also illustrated with photographs, newspaper cuttings and eyewitness accounts.

Reviews

" . . . Tony Conran's informative commentary goes way beyond what is strictly necessary for comprehension, and makes fascinating reading in itself." -New Welsh Review

-- "New Welsh Review"

"'Idris Davies is a legend in our literature and The Angry Summer a milestone . . ." -Bulletin of the Welsh Academy

-- "Bulletin of the Welsh Academy"
" . . . splendidly illustrated and carefully edited . . . " -Poetry Wales-- "Poetry Wales"

Author Bio

Tony Conran was an Anglo-Welsh poet and translator of Welsh poetry and was a tutor in the English Department at Bangor University. Idris Davies was a Welsh poet, writing works in both English and Welsh.