Dafydd Rowlands

Background

Rowlands was born in Pontardawe in 1931 and was educated at Swansea and later the Presbyterian College in Carmarthen.

Career

After leaving education he became a Congregational minister. Leaving the ministry he went to teach at Garw Grammar School in 1968 and was appointed to the staff of Trinity College Carmarthen, in the Welsh Department, and later wrote scripts for television, including the popular Welsh language programme Licrys Olsorts. He has three sons. In 1969 Rowlands was awarded the crown at the National Eisteddfod in 1969 held at Flint for his sequence of poems I Gwestiynau fy Mab.

He was again awarded the crown in 1972, this time in Pembrokeshire with his work "Dadeni".

This was followed by three collections of poetry, Meini (1972), Year Wythfed (1975) and Sobers a Fi (1995) and in 1980 he produced a pamphlet of prose poetry Paragraffau o Serbia. In 1977 Rowlands wrote the experimental Mae Theomemphus yn Hen, a prose novel in the Welsh language.

In the novel he explored his relationship with his father in an uncompromisig self-examination, rarely seen in Modern Welsh literature. He was archdruid (David Rowland) from 1996 to 1999.

Achievements

• Rowlands won the crown at the National Eisteddfod in 1969 and 1972, and was made archdruid in 1996. And that same year he won the Prose Medal for his volume of essays Ysgrifau yr Hanner Bardd.