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Gillian Clarke Addresses Poem to Barrack Obama
"THE National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke, has sent a poem to President Elect Barack Obama to mark his inauguration as the 44th US president next week."
WALES ONLINE ARTICLE HERE
Great idea.This article is another example of the blindspot which the English-language media have towards Welsh-language culture. While the article does mention in passing that Ifor ap Glyn sent a poem to Obama, it focuses exclusively on Clarke, saying, among much else, that "Her work is read by thousands around the world and studied in schools across the UK as part of English literature courses." The same exactly could be said of Ifor ap Glyn, a third-generation London-Welsh poet who has won the National Crown and whose work is (or at least used to be, I'm pretty sure) on the national syllabus. He has also been translated into many languages.Many people would say that it's right that Wales Online gave the attention to Clarke since she is (undoubtedly) the more famous poet. However, this is a vicious circle: one of the reasons why Clarke is more well-known is precisely because the Welsh media choose far too often not to let their readers know about what happens in Welsh!In any case - let's hope Obama likes the poems!!!