Ysbryd Y Môr Writers
Award winning poet Rhian Edwards led a group of chronic patients in an innovative addition to their treatment with Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Healthboard. The group wrote mood poems, reflecting on positive and negative emotions, wrote about their homes and childhoods, bringing objects and photos to inspire the writing. Rhian drew together powerful collective poetry from conversation in the group. The group has continued writing as an enjoyable form of expressing themselves.
- “I didn’t know what to expect, but this has been much better than anything I could have imagined. I’ve had a bad week and this has been the thing I’ve been looking forward to getting out of bed for.” – participant, Ysbryd Y Môr Writers
Pens
Remember the multi-coloured pen,
black, red, blue and green.
Lisa’s daughter only writes with black pen,
she refuses to write with blue.
Lynwen has an Art Nouveau pen
with a matching notebook.
Her daughter Lucinda
has a similar design.
Bethan pulls out a crayon
“which says it all really.
Years after teaching
I was still pulling
red pens out of my handbag.”
Lined paper for Diane, otherwise
her writing slopes to the side.
“You can tell I’m not used to writing”,
says Neil waving his hand
clutching the blue pen.
My daughter used to go to sleep
to the sound of the washing machine
or a Billy Joel album and I only had one.
Did she fall asleep to the sound
of the steelworks?
