Euros Bowen (1904 – 1988, W) was born in Treorchy, and attended the University of Wales as well as Oxford. Brother of poet Geraint Bowen, he was ordained as a priest of the Church in Wales, serving 1934-38 as curate of Wrexham, then as rector of Llanuwchllyn with Llangywer, on the shore of Lake Bala in Merionethshire, from which parishes he retired in 1973. He spent the remainder of his life in Wrexham. He was in his 50s before he published his first volume of poetry. Compared to the writing of T. Gwynn Jones, Bowen’s early work (collected in Cerddi – Poems – 1957) is dense with layered imagery, and whilst later on he moved into free verse. Although the work in his first book is rich with form and form experiment, his second; Cerddi Rhydd (Free Verses, published 1961) dispenses with all formal devices and is made up of prose proems in the manner of Rimbaud. Not only was Bowen responsible for bringing into Welsh poetry influences from mainland Europe which effectively revolutionised the medium – in this he is in many ways to Welsh literature what T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were to English. Bowen was comparable in stature with his fellow priest-poet R. S. Thomas. Euros Bowen won the bardic Crown at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 1948 for O’r Dwyrain, and again in 1950 for Difodiant. He edited the literary journal, Y Fflam, 1946-1952.
Books
- Oes y Medwsa (1987)
- Lleidr Tân
- Buarth Bywyd
- Trin Cerddi