In 1944 Lynette Roberts’s first collection Poems was commissioned by T. S. Eliot and published by ‘Faber & Faber’: The leading literary editors of the day were given due acknowledgement in the forward. Amongst them were Robert Herring ofLife and Letters Today, George Orwell of the Tribune, Keidrych Rhys of Wales and the anthology Modern Welsh Poetry, Cycil Connolly of Horizon, M.J. Tambinuttu of Poetry London and the anthology Poetry in Wartime, John Lehmann of Penguin New Writing. Robert Graves’s claim that, “Lynette Roberts is one of the few true poets
now writing”, was used to publicise the collection.
Lynette Roberts’s work was never mainstream, and her literary career was effectively over by the mid 1950’s. Her life and work was sometimes remembered via association with bigger literary ‘names’. During the 1940’s. Lynette Roberts was able to count Robert Graves, Alun Lewis, Edith Sitwell, Vernon Watkins, T.S. Eliot, amongst her friends. Wyndham Lewis painted her portrait in 1948. She is credited with helping Robert Graves in the researching of the book that became The White Goddess, introducing him to such work as Celtic Researches by Reverend Edward Davies, published 1809.
In the 21st century her poetry has been rediscovered. And Lynette Roberts deserves to be recognised as a unique poet of World War 2. At the time, she was an outsider living in rural Carmarthenshire, devoted to Welsh culture, history, dialect, mythology, though never a Welsh speaker as such. Her poetry and other writing is quite unique. Connected to a broader Anglo-Welsh movement, sharing elements of modernism along with New Apocalypse fascination with legends. The literary critic Patrick McGuiness described her work as “the machine age re-workings of the old myths”.
From Part I of Gods WIth Stainless Ears:
“This is Saint Cadoc’s Day. All this Saint Cadoc’s
Estuary; and that bell tolling, Abbey paddock.
Sunk,-Sad as ancient monument of stone.
Trees vail, exhale cyprine shade, widowing
Homeric Hills, green pinnacles of bone.”
Her work covered so many experiences of her wartime rural life, discovering local wildflowers, observing each native bird, depicting how a relatively isolated Welsh village deals with wartime shortages. Disclosing intimate thoughts and feelings, as an army wife whose husband is fighting away from home, dealing with a miscarriage, her soldier husband’s infidelity. Also records visiting bombed London, getting caught in air raids in London and Kent. Lynette Roberts was also hunting lesser known words and expressions to weave into her work. There is a great sense of poetry as printed newsreel, a technique made famous by Louis MacNeice’s Autumn Journal.
There is a strange tension between placement/adopted community contrasted by being an obvious outsider along : Roberts’s most famous poem is ‘Poem from Llanybri’ written for Alun Lewis, extolling the Welsh village hospitality ….
“A sit by the hearth with blue flames rising,
No talk. Just stare at ‘Time’ gathering
Healed thoughts, pool insight, like swan sailing
Peace and sound around the home, offering”
By contrast there is a ‘Raw Salt in the Eye’ based on a time in 1940 when the invasion fear was raging, and Lynette was suspected of spying. Local brats were throwing stones at her, and older villagers were spreading unkind rumours.
“Stone village, who would know that I lived alone;
Who would know that I suffered a two-edged pain,
Was accused of spycraft to full innate minds with loan,
Was felled innocent, suffered a stain as rare as Cain’s.”
The heroic poem ‘Gods With Stainless Ears’ , had already been written between 1941-1943, but was not published until 1951 it is not clear why there was a delay. Though she received some radio work and public speaking engagements, Lynette’s third collection of poetry The Fifth Pillar of Song was turned down by T.S. Eilot at Faber & Faber in 1953. Literary magazines featured less of her poetry at this stage, but Lynette’s written output was directed in other directions: A novel titled Nesta, considered to have been lost, has recently been discovered, whilst another novel Endeavour, about Captain Cook, was published in 1954.
But who was she? Evelyn (‘Lynette’) Beatrice Roberts was born on 4th July 1909 in Argentina ,where she spent her childhood years largely in the countryside. Hers parents were Australian but of Welsh ancestry. As a teenager she was partly educated in Britain. In the 1930’s Roberts was studying at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and also established a florist business whilst exploring literary London. Around 1938, she met Welsh poet and journalist Keidrych Rhys ( born William Ronald Rhys Jones ) at a literary event organised by M.J. Tambimuttu, the editor of Poetry London, a publication they had both written for. Rhys, born and raised in the Welsh village of Bethlehem in 1913, had recently started his publication Wales. A literary cooperation began. Lynette was already engaged but by Spring 1939 the two poets became a couple . Keidrych Rhys’s contribution to the Anglo-Welsh literary movement is quite well known, but he was also an avid collector and crucial editor of
poetry during World War 2.
Keidrych and Lynette left London for Wales in 1939. On 4th October 1939 they married, Dylan Thomas was best man, borrowing a suit from Vernon Watkins for the occasion. Settling in Llanybri the couple worked on their respective literary projects. Money was not always forthcoming, Lynette also suffered a miscarriage in March 1940.The War would soon make heavy demands on their marriage. In June
1940 Keidrych was called up, and became a gunner for the 99th London Welsh Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, stationed at coastal defences in Kent, Suffolk, and the Isles of Orkney.
In 1942 Keidrych went AWOL for five days then gave himself up. Rather than being court-martialled and jailed, he was sent to Northfield Hospital which specialised in therapeutic treatment for serving soldiers. Keidrych was discharged from the army with all charges against him dropped and was later employed by the Ministry of Information, which gave him some scope to return to editing and publishing.
Lynette had two children with Keidrych, born in 1945 and 1946, but the marriage ended in 1948. By the end of 1950’s Lynette was experiencing recurrent episodes of mental illness, and virtually ceased writing. She died on 26th September 1995.
Her life and work risked becoming a footnote to the 1940’s literary scene. Occasionally some interest was shown. Poetry Wales devoted part of an issue to Roberts’s poetry with a biography included, in 1983 . In 2005 Lynette Roberts’s Collected Poems appeared, which included the two already published collections, and over 30 unpublished poems with some prose extracts. This was followed by Lynette Roberts’s Diaries, Letters and Recollections in 2008. Both were edited by Patrick McGuinness. The latter collection included Lynette’s A Carmarthenshire Diary from 1939-1948, some literary reminiscences, letters to Robert Graves,short prose work previously published under the name of Welsh Dialect, and finally Notes for an Autobiography.
Lynette’s diary entry for 12th June 1942 mentioned a visit to London:
“And my stay at the Inner Temple when I turned up while the library buildings were still smouldering and continued to burn for another five days. The Round Church wet and empty like a grotesque seashell. Out of this experience I wrote my poem ‘Crossed and Uncrossed.’
A classic example of ‘Blitz’ poetry was thus created: The poem offers a vivid picture of the Crusader church shattered in a drastic air raid, an extraordinary collision of the epic past with the brutality of 20th century warfare:
‘Cross and Uncrossed’ (extract):
“Heard the steam rising from the chill blue bricks
Heard the books sob and the buildings huge groan
As the hard crackle of flames leapt on firemen
and paled the red walls……….
Round Church built in a Round Age, cold with grief,
Coloured Saints of glass lie buried at your feet;
Crusaders uncross limbs by the green light of flares,
burn into Tang shapes
From paper window we gaze at the catacomb of books,
You,unflinching stern of spirit, ready to
Gather charred sticks to fight no gas where gas was
everywhere escaping.”
As the 30th anniversary of the death of Lynette Roberts approaches, it is hoped that both her poetry and prose receives the attention that it deserves. At the time of writing a new edition of Lynette’s Collected Poems is being prepared by Carcanet.
Books referenced
Poems from Lynette Roberts -Collected Poems – Edited by Patrick McGuinness, Carcanet Press, 2005, (Particular reference to the Introduction by Patrick McGuiness)
‘Lynette Roberts-Diaries, Letters and Recollections’ , Edited with an introduction by
Patrick McGuinness, Carcanet Press, 2008 (Particularly the Introduction, and ‘Carmarthenshire Diary’ and ‘Notes for an
Autobiography’ )
Keidrych Rhys The Van Pool: Collected Poems, Edited by Charles Mundye (Particularly the Introduction by Charles Mundye ), Seren Books 2012
I wish to thank Angharad Rhys, Lynette Roberts’s daughter- for her help with this piece and Patrick Villa for further information about the Poetry Wales magazine feature.
Trying to establish dates and biographical details for both Lynette Roberts and Keidrych Rhys is not a straightforward process. But any errors in this respect should be attributed to the writer of this piece, and not to any other acknowledged source.