5 Encounters: Nerys Williams on the Art that Made Her
Nerys Williams, author of Republic, reflects on the process of writing a collection which draws together poetry, music and the visual arts, and tells us about the five books which inspired her.
Writing the volume Republic felt a little like retracing my key encounters with music, poetry, film and painting from 80s to the present. Republic’s composition began as an urgent response to questions of identity provoked by the UK referendum. From the early drafts it was clear that the project would dissect what it is to inhabit a language that is under threat. I was keen to make Republic as discursive as possible. Many of the volume’s prose poems are my response to anti-Welsh sentiment voiced on social media. Reviewers have graciously pointed to Republic as an experimental work. In some ways it had to be. However, it finds a strong lineage in modernist poetry (and earlier). I did feel I was writing within a tradition, which gave me some comfort.
The following five works offer a bridge between my version of west Wales and the world. They are not displayed as badges of “cultural capital”, but as my encounters with new ways of thinking about music, identity, politics and language. Whenever the writing of Republic became a little lost, self-indulgent or threatened to lose its integrity, I reflected on works that I deeply admired. These five encounters –always reminded me of what is possible. They are works that make the heart beat a little faster…
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