Idris Davies "When Greed Was Born In Monmouthshire" and "The Bells Of Rhymney"

Heres a virtual movie of the celebrated Welsh Coal miner poet Idris Davies reading"When Greed Was Born In Monmouthshire" 


This poem was first published in his 1938 collection of poems Gwalia Deserta (literally in English means "The Leaving of Wales" was addressed to the mining folk of Monmouthshire where Davies came from,but its message is universal in its protest at the corrosiveness of materialism,and how the unfettered pursuit of wealth destroys communities and the landscape where the plunder of natural resources is involved.


Idris Davies (born 6 January 1905 Rhymney, died 6 April 1953), was a Welsh poet, originally writing in Welsh, but later writing exclusively in English. He was the only poet to cover significant events in the early 20th century in the South Wales Valleys and the South Wales coalfield, and from a perspective literally at the coalface.

He is now best known for the poem Bells of Rhymney,