Skirrid Hill

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This poem refers to the myth that Skirrid Hill was formed at the moment of the crucifixion by God’s grief. Sheers deliberately imbues this with ambiguity however, as he simply refers to the crucifixion as ‘a father’s grief at the loss of his son to man.’ By describing it in such broad terms, Sheers encourages us to see it as being analogous to the situation between him and his own father, or the situation between the father and son in ‘Hill Fort’ This transition we see in the role of the farrier is an interesting one and could be used as an illustration of ‘masculinity’ being just another ‘role’ or pretention that does not stand up to interrogation. The parallel is drawn here between his father’s use of tree-planting to mark both life and death and how sometimes a sunrise and sunset can look the same. We can link this with the death of Christ in the previous poem marking the birth of Christianity, or in the fact that he rose again. Whilst this act is taking place however, the poet is concentrating on the lights that are beginning to be turned off outside the window and seems practically oblivious to the sexual act that is being performed on him.

The past, though, was one of heavy industry and difficult and dangerous work. The resources and the people who extracted or worked with them were exploited during the eighteenth and nineteenth century Industrial Revolution. Despite nostalgia for the past, it was an age of terrible living conditions and ruthless exploitation. The second part comprises four 4-line stanzas known as quatrains, and describes the poet’s girlfriend as she prepares to go out. The last two quatrains are rhymed. The significance of the two segments and their relationship to each other is the subject of the poem. Taken as a whole, the epigraph touches upon all of the important aspects of this collection. With the line ‘as we grow older’, Sheers is not merely thinking about people growing older, although there is plenty of this in the collection, he is also thinking about the development of society. He is referring to a principle that the French Philosopher, Charles Péguy summed up in the phrase le monde moderne avilit (the modern world corrupts everything).In this poem, there is a turning point when the poet says ‘ I felt the tipping of the scales of us, / the intersection of our ages’. Sheers has become ‘the man of the family’ and his father is the frail one . Knapman, Joshua (28 June 2018). "In search of the oldest pub in Wales". Wales Online . Retrieved 11 January 2023. World War One was a time of such horror and ferociousness that it has never quite left the consciousness of historians and writers. The image of ‘the tractor writing with its wheels’ is also quite pivotal in this piece. Writers, especially writers who do not come from writing families, will often try and find aspects of the lives of their friends and family that are analogous to what they do. If a tractor’s primary task is to till the soil – that is to stir it up, overturn it and make it ripe for the sewing of seeds, then Sheers is suggesting that this is what he does with his writing. He takes what is there and makes it ripe for vital things to grow, perhaps, if we are to extend this metaphor, for things that can be exported and therefore increase the power of Wales. The idea that the poet feels that he ‘should have known’ what his father was trying to say by planting the oak further highlights the gap between their personalities. Sheers, a man of words, is likely to be less oblique in his communication, yet he accepts that his father is a more taciturn character, less likely to share his grievances.

Summary: A gradual ascent through fields, woods and along the ridge with a steep decent from the peak. The word Ysgyryd in Welsh or ‘skirrid’ in English means split or shattered or separated. As the title of a collection of poems it is highly significant. I see there to be a very clear case for arguing that this is potentially the ‘key poem’ in the collection, especially as we see the explicit role of actors in this collection come into play in a very important way towards the final few poems. A clear narrative follow-on from ‘Show’ – the lovers have had an argument which links in with the idea of ‘skirrid’ as divorce.The voice is that of a third person narrator, the poet. The tone is muted and understated, all the more effective given the terrible story told, an example of ‘less is more’. The language is straightforward and understandable, almost conversational. It is also entirely incongruent with the collection in terms of imagery, because it is one of the few pieces that draws relations between people and man-made objects – in the rest of the collection, most parallels are drawn between the world of man and the world of nature. The crudeness of the ‘red wings’ image also shows us that much of the poem is being told through the anecdotal wording of the Jones character himself. We imagine that the image of the ‘umbrella blown inside out’ is Sheers�

By mentioning that swans ‘mate for life’, Sheers includes another parallel between animals and humans and allows for he and his lover to model their behaviour on that of the birds. The birds swim apart but eventually return to each other, just like the lovers’ hands. As they reach the top Sheers seeks to capture the moment, immortalizing the memory within a photograph. He sets up the camera and then joins his father, capturing their moment together. Sheers places the beauty of Wales before the idea of the two men. It could be that Sheers is using the linking factor between the two, their Welsh heritage, as something that binds them together. Indeed, the elevation of the beauty of the scene, focusing on the ‘mountains’ arrives before the description of them. The ‘elephant’s graveyard of cars’ is a potent image within the collection as it reminds us of Mametz Wood. The ground is gradually purging itself of the manmade impositions (it was dead bodies and their uniforms in the first poem, now it is ‘dead’ abandoned cars). The fact that such elegant understatement is the exception rather than the rule in Skirrid Hill is the collection's only real weakness. If Sheers's poetry has a flaw, it lies in his propensity to over-explicate at times. Take for example the final lines of "The Wake", a deeply felt poem in which an older man - a grandfather, I assumed - explains to the poet that he is dying. The poem ends with the pair taking their leave of one another. As they wave goodbye, the poet recognises that: St Michael's Chapel". Historic Environment Record (HER). Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust (GGAT). PRN GGAT01473g . Retrieved 28 June 2016– via archwilio (online database of the four Welsh Archaeological Trusts). {{ cite web}}: External link in |via= ( help)

Ysgyryd Fawr has belonged to the National Trust since 1939. The summit offers views of the Sugar Loaf to the west, and Blorenge to the south, and the ridge is easily accessed on foot from the car park beside the B4521 Ross Road shown on the Ordnance Survey maps. The ascent is steep initially through woods, but gradual thereafter as open ground is reached, and a fine walk along the spine of the mountain to the highest point at the north end of the mountain at the trig point and chapel; allow two hours for the completion and return in good weather. A rough path follows the perimeter of the hill at a much lower level, and can be used as a circular route. The epigraph itself however, has been chosen most judiciously, for there are at least four obvious thematic paths it can lead us down, and several more subtle. Line 1 indicates a theme of age/youth, line 2 indicates a theme of modernisation and the breakdown of society and line 3 indicates a theme mortality and spirituality. For the return journey follow the ridge which gently descends from the summit in a southerly direction. Turn left at the wooden way marker which soon rejoins the path used on the outbound route.

The sexual encounter of ‘Marking Time’ is contrasted here by a far less intimate and enjoyable experience. Partly designed to save you having to Google some of the more obscure references in the collection.The fathers and sons have gone, ‘no more than scattered grains’, but as he points out, the landscape will be the same in ‘9, 19 or 90 years’. The poems are about personal loss and untimely death, making the contrast all the more poignant. The poem is made up of two parts, the first comprising three 3-line stanzas, known as tercets or triplets, and a couplet. This section describes fashion models on a catwalk. There is no rhyme scheme. In 2007 his play about Alun Lewis was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and his first novel, Resistance, was published. He later co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation, released in 2011. His novella Two Ravens, one of the stories in Seren's 'Mabinogion' series, was published in 2009. That same year, he presented the BBC4 television series A Poet's Guide to Britain, and wrote the accompanying book of the series. Sheers uses free verse and, typically, his favoured three line stanzas, known as triplets or tercets. In this poem, however, he intersperses these stanzas with single lines. The effect is disjointed, as is the precarious relationship.