We were all sitting under our apple tree on the afternoon of August 14, 2026 when three mobile phone rang in unison, proclaiming a ‘national alert.’ This announcement was yn Gymraeg, showing climate change acknowledges no borders.
Wildfires everywhere the danger. From where we are in Porthcawl the nearest fire seemed to be at Ton Kenfig, but earlier smoke pollution originated in Torfaen and the Rhondda, many miles distant.
Sunday August 16 more smoke in the air. Wildfires and unprecedented continual high temperatures suddenly familiar.
Absurdly late has been recognition by the arts of the seriousness of climate change. In the poetry world, the institution of ‘the Laurel prize’ is a very belated realization of what has been happening for decades.
This is why Sustainable Wales Cymru Gynaliadwy is delighted that Laura Wainwright is on the shortlist for the Laurel 2026 award with her volume ‘The Storm’s Flora’ (Seren).
There is nothing polemical about this book, instead a delicacy of tone only Wainwright’s skill as a painter and guitarist might bring to poetry. “Wildfires devour themselves” she tells us almost in the last line of all.
It’s a philosophical consolation. But despite the phone alerts, the political credibility of Rhun ap Iorwerth and Andy Burnham, both so recently elected, is already imperilled.
Robert Minhinnick