A Feature on the Gwent Levels by Robert Minhinnick: The Reen

Robert Minhinnick on the Gwent Levels Campaign

Ten days before Christmas, 2023, I went with the poet Laura Wainwright to explore parts of the ‘Gwent Levels’, at Uskmouth. It was my first visit, although Laura is familiar with the area, sometimes taking her children walking there.

We went there because the area is increasingly threatened by various developments. Only in the last four years has the Welsh government rejected plans for a new extension of the M4 motorway through parts of these wetlands.

The weather proved raw and blustery, but we were both delighted to encounter immediately some of the very particular wildlife that inhabits the area.

I saw my first ever reed bunting, and keen-eyed Laura identified a heron on the Severn mudflats, and thus we are writing, painting and sketching our expedition highlights.

This exploration occurred at the same time as the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians, especially in Gaza. Personally I found combining in my writing the situations in both Gwent Levels and Gaza, quite natural.

Some of this work will be performed at 7.30 pm, Tuesday, April 16, 2024, at ‘Le Pub’, 19, High St., NEWPORT NP20 1FW. This will be a live performance featuring spoken word, music and film.The event is organized by Sustainable Wales/Cymru Gynalidwy. Details for those who wish to perform or attend, from: <robert.minhinnick@sustainablewales.org.uk>.

The Reen

(With thanks to  Marwan Makhoul, poet born to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother in 1979 in the village of Boquai’a in the Upper Galilee region of Palestine).

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To find a Google Doc accessible version of the poem above, please see this link.

Robert Minhinnick is one of Wales’s and the UK’s foremost poets. He is the prize-winning author of essays, poetry, and fiction. He has also edited a book on the environment in Wales, written for television, and provided columns for The Western Mail and Planet. He is the co-founder of the environmental organisation Sustainable Wales, and was formerly the editor of Poetry Wales. Recent books are his nonfiction essays Delirium (Seren Books), his novel Nia (Seren Books), and the poetry collection Diary of the Last Man (Carcanet) which was Wales Book of the Year, winner of the Roland Mathias Poetry Award, and shortlisted for the Forward Prize.