Turning: Poems of Migration and Identity

Turning is a remarkable collection of poems which tells the story of the influence of one Welsh family, and its relations and migrations, on the life of the poet. The poems are in turn simple, elegant, intense, humorous and moving - often vivid and always approachable. By focusing on places and characters over the course of a century, they explore the need to break away from the confines of family, from poverty and nutritional inadequacies, or from an unsuitable climate, and the need to find adventure, or a mate, to open new lands and explore. The poems also hint at something deeper and unconscious, a biological need to spread our seed to ensure genetic diversity. And they describe how this outward movement is often inhibited by ties to family and ancestry, to landscape and climate, to patterns of behavior, rituals, religions and language. In all of this the Welsh word hiraeth is never far beneath the surface. The word is often translated into English as the longing for home, but you don’t have to be Welsh to know that feeling, and Turning is beyond nationality and identity. It is less about finding an external place to end that longing than rediscovering an internal state of contentment. The poet’s visionary style manages to reveal that there are no endings, and that loving and losing are universal and timeless ways of singing the world alive.