Gorwelion: Shared Horizons

Texts from Gorwelion will be made available as digital contributions to events at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties COP26 in Glasgow, 1-12 November 2021, representing voices from the UK and India in uniting the world to tackle climate change, where the book will also be launched and available to buy. Produced in collaboration with Sustainable Wales/ Cymru Gynaliadwy Gorwelion follows on from Sustainable Wales' initial project 'Our Square Mile', created to help us imagine the future. 'This project aims to imagine what life in Wales could look like in the future as seen through the lens of the cultural dimension of well-being. The Well-being of Future Generations Act requires us to think long-term and broaden our horizons and "Square Mile - Milltir Sgwar" can do just that...' – Sophie Howe, Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

Gorwelion is the second stage of this project commissioning five writers from India and five others from the UK. Contributors from Wales include Peter Finch, Laura Wainwright and Abeer Ameer; from Scotland include Mandy Haggith and Stewart Sanderson; and from India include Sampurna Chatterji. These contributors have been asked to consider the 'global' re: climate change, biodiversity and introduce 'future thinking'. This future might be mundane, marvellous or dreadful. More info and updates as they come at www.sustainablewales.org.uk/ gorwelionhome

-- Publisher: Parthian Books
Timed to coincide with COP 26, this anthology of poetry and short prose responds to the climate-change emergency declared by the Welsh Government in 2019. Long-time environmental activist Robert Minhinnick has brought together writers from India, Wales and Scotland to give their own personal response to the crisis. Tishani Doshi’s lyrical response to rising sea levels, which begins the anthology, encompasses history, geography and religion and is one of my particular favourite pieces; it reminded me that rather than a boundary separating us, the sea unites us coast-dwellers, and that the problem of rising sea levels draws us even closer. Other highlights include Maggie Haggith’s description of Loch Roe, although her conclusion that Norwest Scotland will be little affected by sea-level changes, and ultimately that the land will be scoured clean of human impact by the next ice age, seems a little glib coming as it does swift on the heels of Doshi. Laura Wainwright and Suzanne Iuppa, also essayists, take us to Wales: Newport and the southern tip of Snowdonia respectively. Wainwright’s piece on Glebelands, the park in Newport that was once a dump, recipient of some of the most noxious by-products and waste products of industry, is simultaneously terrifying and hopeful: so far the chemical fallout is contained, and the River Usk is surprisingly untainted by proximity, but how will sea-level changes affect this? Her reference to palimpsests and the concept of erasure also make this a provocatively ambiguous read. The poetry featured in the anthology includes some well-known Welsh lit-biz names; a series of poems by Samantha Wynne Rhydderch stands out as poignant, nostalgic, and curiously playful, while also thought-provoking. I found that they stayed with me, particularly ‘Time’ with its pace switches that evoke the paradox of time: how it is simultaneously fast and slow, indefinite and immediate. This was my introduction to Scottish poet Stewart Sanderson – I enjoyed (not entirely sure that’s the right word!) ‘The Cheviots: A Future History’, perhaps best described as an ante-apocalyptic dystopian vision of a future in which the Cheviots are lashed by ‘acid sleet and poisonous wind’ while the residue of humanity lives in reinforced-concrete bunkers. We are at the twenty-sixth COP with little indication that we as a species can resolve to stop our ongoing disregard for the Earth. Gorwelion – Shared Horizons is an anthology of work that demands we face this crisis head on – a throwback to the idea that writing should be politically engaged and enraged. The horizon is always closer than it seems. -- Alex Hobson @ www.gwales.com