TROEON : TURNINGS

"To turn, to dig, to plough, to upset, to translate… Bend, lap, journey, time..." The Welsh word troeon unfolds meaning after meaning. In TROEON : TURNINGS, two poets confident in their own traditions meet in the hinterland between translation and collaboration—Cyril Jones from the disciplines of Welsh cynghanedd, Philip Gross from the restless variety of English verse. Rather than lamenting the impossibility of reproducing any language’s unique knots of form and content in translation, they trust each other to explore the energies released. In the cloud chamber, atoms tear, spin, split, translate the past and future into spirals, spun silk, sheer release, the heart of the matter. In the same spirit, Valerie Coffin Price plays an equal part with striking letterpress designs that surprise the language of both writers into new awareness of its possibilities.

Philip Gross is a poet, librettist and writer for young people. A keen collaborator with other poets and across art forms, he has lived and worked in South Wales since 2004. Valerie Coffin Price is an artist-letterer, whose work responds creatively to poetry and place. Being a second language Welsh speaker equips her to explore the space between the poets and the languages. Cyril Jones is a Welsh language poet who writes strict and free metre poems. Since moving to work in south Wales in 2001 he has collaborated with artists, an archaeologist, and other poets.