John Davies (poet and wood carver)

John Davies was born in 1944 and brought up in Cymmer, Neath Port Talbot, a coal mining village in the Afan Valley, south Wales. He was the eldest child of Elizabeth Dymond Chappell and John Vyrnwy Davies, a history teacher, one of whose pupils had been the actor Richard Burton. J. Vyrnwy Davies was Richard Burton’s history teacher at Dyffryn Grammar School, Port Talbot. Vyrnwy Davies' nickname at the time was ‘Tout’, a reference to the distinguished historian Thomas Frederick Tout (1855-1929). Vyrnwy Davies later became Headmaster when Dyffryn became a comprehensive school in 1965. See R. Burton (2012) The Richard Burton Diaries, Yale University Press p50, 54. In 1954, the family moved to Port Talbot where John Davies attended Dyffryn Grammar School. Both Dyffryn and Port Talbot itself have some interesting associations with various poets, including Ruth Bidgood, Sally Roberts Jones, Dylan Thomas and David Gwyn Williams. Poetry and Port Talbot 
After Dyffryn, John Davies studied at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, subsequently becoming a teacher in Prestatyn, north Wales. Teaching was very much a family affair, not just his father but his father's three brothers as well. J.V. Davies’ brothers who were also teachers: W. Morien Davies (woodwork at Gowerton Grammer School), Mr G. Davies (Geography at Dyffryn) and Mr V. Davies, who was Richard Burton’s Physical Education teacher at Dyffryn – see R. Burton (2012 ) The Richard Burton Diaries, Yale University Press pp54, 671. 
Davies has also taught at the universities of Michigan and Washington State, and was a Visiting Professor at the Brigham Young University, Utah. He is known today as both a poet and wood carver.
John Davies’ poems were first published in The Wayfarer, the school magazine. Copies are kept at the West Glamorgan Archives An early influence on his poetry was his English teacher at Dyffryn, R.Selwyn Davies, who had succeeded Philip Burton (theatre director) as Head of the English Department. Selwyn Davies was a formative and revered influence on many pupils, both through his teaching and the work he did in producing school plays and the school magazine. For more on him, see A. John (2015) The Actors’ Crucible: Port Talbot and the Making of Burton, Hopkins, Sheen and all the Others, Parthian pp 63-64, 67, 76, 157. And here’s a former pupil’s view: “Selwyn Davies became my English teacher and he replaced Mr P.H Burton. I absolutely loved this teacher and enjoyed every lesson but I know that many didn’t like him because he was rather sarcastic. He even made English Grammar palatable.” See Pupil 
Davies has published seven collections of poetry, as well as editing three anthologies. He won the Oriel Poetry Prize in 1981. In 1986, his third collection, The Visitor's Book, was joint winner of the Poetry Society's major award, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize.
His work has appeared in several journals, including Poetry Wales, Stanza, Outposts Poetry Quarterly, The Anglo-Welsh Review and The Seattle Review. He has also been published in a number of poetry anthologies including 
*D. Abse ed. (1983) Wales in Verse, Secker and Warburg. 
*T. Curtis ed. (1986) Wales: the Imagined Nation, Studies in Cultural and National Identity, Poetry Wales Press
* J. Hooker (1987) The Presence of the Past: Essays on Modern British and American Poetry, Poetry Wales Press
* D. Lloyd ed. (1994) The Urgency of Identity: Contemporary English-language Poetry from Wales, Northwestern University
*D. Abse ed. (1997) Twentieth Century Anglo-Welsh Poetry, Seren
* M. Stephens ed. (2007) Poetry 1900-2000, Summersdale
Davies’ entry in The Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales notes that “Frequently concerned with the experience of isolation, his work has been praised for its formal precision and for its marriage of delicate lyricism with intellectual toughness.” M. Stephens ed. (1986) The Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales, Oxford University Press Professor Elinor Shaffer has elaborated on this point in her study of literary devolution: “John Davies has continued to write about home, family and Welsh origins and places, and…is a traditionalist in his frequent use of regular stanza forms and rhyme…he is constantly aware of linguistic and cultural tensions. The reasons may lay partly in his up-bringing in industrial South Wales, and partly within the linguistic divisions within his own family. He does not speak Welsh while those about him do…” E. S. Shaffer (1998) Comparative Criticism: Literary Devolution: Writing in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England, Cambridge University Press vol. 19 pp117-119 
John Davies began wood carving in 1977 after his year teaching in Michigan, where he learnt about the region’s decoy tradition Michigan decoy carvers During further visits, Davies worked with carvers in Washington and Utah. 
Davies lives near an estuary in Prestatyn, and is particularly interested in shore birds. Amongst his favourite subjects are 
greenshanks, kingfishers, owls, sandpipers, sedge warblers and wrens. Most of the driftwood that provides the perches for his carvings comes from the Clwyd and Conway estuaries. Davies’ wife, Marilyn Davies, carries out most of the painting of the carvings. Their work can be seen here birds in the wood
The Strangers, 1974, Christopher Davies
At the Edge of Town, 1981, Gomer
The Silence in the Park, 1982, Poetry Wales Press 
The Visitor’s Book, 1985, Poetry Wales Press
Flight Patterns, 1991, Seren Books
Dirt Roads, 1998, Seren
North by South: New and Selected Poems, 2003, Seren
The Valleys (with Mike Jenkins), 1984, Poetry Wales Press
The Streets and the Stars: An Anthology of Writing from Wales (with Melvyn Jones), 1995, Seren
The Green Bridge: Stories from Wales, 2019, Seren
*R. Burton (2012 ) The Richard Burton Diaries, Yale University Press, (ed. C. Williams) 
*A. John (2015) The Actors’ Crucible: Port Talbot and the Making of Burton, Hopkins, Sheen and all the Others, Parthian
*S. R. Jones (2009) The Literary Tradition of the Neath and Afan Valleys and Tir Iarll (Maesteg and Porthcawl), M.Phil. thesis, Swansea University 
*L. Rees (2013) The Real Port Talbot, Seren
*E. S. Shaffer (1998) Comparative Criticism: Literary Devolution: Writing in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England, Cambridge University Press vol. 19
*M. Stephens ed. (1986) The Oxford Companion to the Literature of Wales, Oxford University Press
Category:1944 births
Category:People from South Wales
Category:British poets
Category:University of New South Wales alumni