THE HONEST FORGER: new poems and photographs for Iolo Morganwg commemorates, celebrates and examines the life and ideas of Iolo Morganwg [1747-1826], on the two hundredth anniversary of his death.
Poet, lexicographer, balladeer, antiquarian, theologian, drug-addict, chronicler of customs and legends, peace advocate, campaigner for human rights, fair trade pioneer, defender of the poor and the dispossessed, and the greatest authority of his time on Welsh history and literature, Iolo Morganwg – the stone mason from Glamorgan – fashioned much of the identity of modern Wales.
THE HONEST FORGER contains poetry by some of Wales’ best (and newest) writers, including Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch, Peter Finch, Gwyneth Lewis, Dannie Abse, Tony Curtis, Angela Graham, Ifor Thomas, Phil Carradice, Mike Jenkins, Robert Minhinnick, Kristian Evans, Jonah Jones, Julian Cason and Gerry Ray, with black and white photographs by Phil Cope, and a fine introduction by Gareth Thomas.
Professor Geraint Jenkins proclaimed Iolo “the most interesting man in Welsh history”, while John Morris-Jones called him “hateful”, and said that it would be an age “before our history and literature are clean of the traces of his dirty fingers”. Griffith John Williams described him as the “most successful forger in literary history ... whose dreams have coloured the imagination of succeeding generations of Welsh people, even until our own day”.
Recent findings in neuroscience have suggested that the exercise of memory is located in the brain near to, if not analogous with, that of the imagination, our fancies constantly mutating what we recall and what we record. In this sense, we are all, perhaps, forging something. Iolo’s massive legacy of writings and ideas focusses our attention on who we once were, and are today – as individuals and as a nation – how we want to be seen by others, and what we might become in the future, proclaiming our very own versions of his “truth against the world”.
This new inspiring collection of words and images is part of that ongoing exercise in re-imagining and re-invention.
THE HONEST FORGER will be launched at the Llantwit Major IOLO MORGANWG FESTIVAL, on 7 March 2026.
THE HONEST FORGER: new poems and photographs for Iolo Morganwg commemorates, celebrates and examines the life and ideas of Iolo Morganwg [1747-1826], on the two hundredth anniversary of his death.
Poet, lexicographer, balladeer, antiquarian, theologian, drug-addict, chronicler of customs and legends, peace advocate, campaigner for human rights, fair trade pioneer, defender of the poor and the dispossessed, and the greatest authority of his time on Welsh history and literature, Iolo Morganwg – the stone mason from Glamorgan – fashioned much of the identity of modern Wales.
THE HONEST FORGER contains poetry by some of Wales’ best (and newest) writers, including Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch, Peter Finch, Gwyneth Lewis, Dannie Abse, Tony Curtis, Angela Graham, Ifor Thomas, Phil Carradice, Mike Jenkins, Robert Minhinnick, Kristian Evans, Jonah Jones, Julian Cason and Gerry Ray, with black and white photographs by Phil Cope, and a fine introduction by Gareth Thomas.
Professor Geraint Jenkins proclaimed Iolo “the most interesting man in Welsh history”, while John Morris-Jones called him “hateful”, and said that it would be an age “before our history and literature are clean of the traces of his dirty fingers”. Griffith John Williams described him as the “most successful forger in literary history ... whose dreams have coloured the imagination of succeeding generations of Welsh people, even until our own day”.
Recent findings in neuroscience have suggested that the exercise of memory is located in the brain near to, if not analogous with, that of the imagination, our fancies constantly mutating what we recall and what we record. In this sense, we are all, perhaps, forging something. Iolo’s massive legacy of writings and ideas focusses our attention on who we once were, and are today – as individuals and as a nation – how we want to be seen by others, and what we might become in the future, proclaiming our very own versions of his “truth against the world”.
This new inspiring collection of words and images is part of that ongoing exercise in re-imagining and re-invention.
THE HONEST FORGER will be launched at the Llantwit Major IOLO MORGANWG FESTIVAL, on 7 March 2026.
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