Welsh Journals

JAMES CHAPMAN WOODS 1854-1933 SWANSEA'S GREATEST POET? STUART BATCUP It would be remiss to allow the dust of the 1995 UK Year of Literature to settle over Swansea without some tribute to a man described in 1932 as "Swansea's Greatest Poet", by a young commentator called Dylan Thomas!' Born in Isleham in Cambridge on 12th July 1854 and educated at Queen Elizabeth's School Ipswich, J.C. Woods first came to Swansea in 1876. By 1879 he had published his first book of poetry entitled 'A Child of the People and other Poems' and was clearly becoming very involved in Swansea life. Disappointed that there was no proper guidebook to the area available for the visit of the British Association in 1880 he set about and published his own in July 1883 called 'A Complete and Reliable Guide to Swansea and the Mnmbles, Gower and Other Places of Interest Within Easy Access of 'Swansea' What is clear from reading that book is that he had already visited every place mentioned and developed his own love of Gower, epitomised by the introductory poem. Linger with me this olden land to spy:- A land of sleepy hollows. hemmed with woods And hill slopes dense with deep-roof'd solitudes; Of wind-racked moors o'er which the curlews cry, And the red waves of rolling gorse-fires fly: Of capes and scaurs, sea-hewn in stormiest moods, And roaring caves, that nurse the kestrel broods, Where once old-world carnivora crawled to die. A land whereon the breath of Arthur's praise Floats like mist; around whose rock-bound coast Lie Philip's galleons rooted fast in sand,- Hovers in storm time many a drowned ghost; A shore for song a land of yesterdays, Linger with me about this haunted land. From this example and the warm tributes paid to his poetry by Dylan Thomas, by 'JDW' of the Herald of Wales, and later by Vernon Watkins, it is clear that he was no mean poet. Indeed three of his poems were included in an anthology of English poets put together by William Sharp-nestling alongside those of William Wordsworth.