Posted on 31 May 2011
Eurig (far right) with fellow staff members of CAWCS
On Tuesday, in a ceremony held on the stage of the Swansea and District National Urdd Eisteddfod, Dewi Pws, the 2010-2011 Welsh Children’s Laureate will announce that the next Children’s Laureate is Eurig Salisbury, a Research Fellow at The University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth.
In an exciting development, Eurig will enjoy a longer term than usual as Children’s Laureate, as he has been appointed for a two-year period. On behalf of the scheme’s partners, Lleucu Siencyn, Acting Chief Executive of Llenyddiaeth Cymru said:
“The Welsh Children’s Laureate scheme is now well established, and over the years thousands of children across Wales have benefited from writing poetry with the country’s best poets. Over the next two years, as well as visiting schools, Eurig will conduct events that will tie in with S4C’s Calon Cenedl campaign for example, and the Welsh Books Council’s Reading Communities Scheme. Extending his term will give an even greater number of children a taste of writing poetry with Eurig.”
Eurig was born in Cardiff, but the family moved to Llangynog, near Carmarthen, when he was six years old. He attended Ysgol Gynradd Melin Gruffudd, Ysgol Gynradd y Dderwen and Ysgol Gyfun Bro Myrddin, before going on to university at Aberystwyth to study Welsh and Film and Television Studies.
Eurig works as a Research Fellow at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, and the partners are grateful to his employers for releasing him for periods of time to fulfil the role.
He first took an interest in poetry when studying the poems of Dic Jones, Gerallt Lloyd Owen and others in school. At 13 he taught himself to use ‘cynghanedd’ with the help of Myrddin ap Dafydd’s volume Clywed Cynghanedd. He won the Urdd Eisteddfod Chair in Denbighsire in 2006, and has come second three times running in the Chair competition at the National Eisteddfod.
He has published a volume of poetry, Llyfr Glas Eurig and a volume of poetry for children, Sgrwtsh!.
Eurig said:
“It is a great honour to be asked to collaborate with Wales’ little poets. I was also a little poet at one time, although I didn’t know it at the time, and I loved to read silly poems. Actually, the ones I remember best are the poems of my predecessor, poems about a chap called Arwel who was always quiet, and about breaking an egg with a spoon! Dewi Pws’s poems are always full of fun, and my aim is to ensure that the children of Wales will have just as much fun with me over the next two years. And with a bit of luck, my scalp won’t look too much like Mr Pws’s by the end!”
The Welsh Children’s Laureate is a joint project between the Welsh Language Board, the Books Council of Wales, Llenyddiaeth Cymru, S4C and the Urdd. As well as Eurig, the poets who have received the honour in the past are Dewi Pws, Twm Morus, Ifor ap Glyn, Caryl Parry-Jones, Gwyneth Glyn, Mererid Hopwood, Tudur Dylan Jones, Ceri Wyn Jones, Menna Elfyn, Mei Mac and Myrddin ap Dafydd.
/Ends