Arriving Barefooted

In this bilingual collection, Arriving Barefooted—Two Rough Journeys/Glanio’n Droednoeth—Dwy Daith Arw, Gwen Williams traces the journey of the Welsh settlers in Patagonia and a journey in their footsteps. The first settlers arrived at Bahia Nueva in an old tea schooner, The Mimosa, in 1865. They had few farming or engineering skills and met with immediate hardship, sleeping in caves, shooting birds for food — metaphorically barefooted. But they were escaping oppression in their homeland, much like many modern-day migrants, and the determination to preserve their language and culture drove them on.

In 2015, the 150th anniversary of the establishment of Y Wladfa, the poet travelled to Patagonia, welcomed by the descendants of the settlers. She carried a sketchbook and journal, discovering that her modern group of Welsh travellers were much less stoical than those first settlers, despite, or perhaps, because of modern advantages.

The bilingual poems — they had to be in Welsh as well as English and would have been in Spanish too if Williams could have managed it — convey the essence of Chubut, its characters and rugged nature. Ranging from a Celtic festival on the banks of Afon Fawr to the noisy visitors showing off, Gogs and Hwntws (North and South Walians) competing to impress with their singing, these poems, by turns moving and filled with wit and warmth, immerse us in a unique place and culture. And along the way we might even meet the shy Patagonian Killer Bunny.

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