Selected Poems

Retirement to the island of Anglesey, combined with his final illness, led to a late flowering in the poetry of Martin Richards. Attentive to the passing seasons and deeply connected to place, these are poems schooled in the art of haiku. With delicacy and precision, they blend the steady pace of island life with the natural world's wonders - grasshoppers falling silent in the garden, bitterns invisible in reeds - to touch on the mysteries of human relationships; the bonds of friendship, family and inheritance. A prolific translator of European poets as well as of the ancient Chinese and Japanese masters, Richards forged a style that combines these riches with a distinctively Welsh air. This volume gathers the final moments of a lifetime's poetic endeavour.