David Annwn Jones
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David Annwn (born 9 May 1953),[1] also known as David Annwn Jones, is an Anglo-Welsh poet, critic, teacher, playwright, and magic lanternist.
Annwn was born David James Jones in Congleton, and brought up in Cheshire.[1] In his undergraduate years at the University of Aberystwyth, Annwn Jones edited Dragon poetry magazine and helped convene the Gallery Poets series at UCW Neuadd Fawr with Rose Simpson, ex-member of the Incredible String Band. In 1973, he met Robert Duncan, a future influencer on his poetry, and studied for his doctorate supervised by Jeremy Hooker.[citation needed]
Annwn taught at Wakefield College and Leeds University from 1981 to 1995, latterly becoming Head of English[where?]. With Peter Sansom and Graham Mort, he inaugurated the Northern Association of Writers in Education. Active as an organiser and performer, Annwn collaborated with musician John Cowey and poet Roula Pollard in running poetry/drama events at Wakefield College Theatre and convened reading tours for American writers including Robert Berthof, Black Mountain artist Basil King and Bobby Louise Hawkins.[citation needed]
From 1987–1996, Annwn worked with Frances Presley and Peterjon and Yasmin Skelt. He helped publish the work of a wide range of contemporary poets including Eric Mottram, George Mackay Brown and Lee Harwood.[citation needed] He went on to tutor undergraduate, MA Literature and Creative Writing students for Open University, mainly in Leeds and Manchester, but also in Cardiff, Dublin, Glasgow, and Greece. In August 1996, he presented a paper on Celtic Postmodernism at the ‘Assembling Alternatives" conference at the University of New Hampshire. From 1986 onwards, he was also associated with Black Mountain poet Jonathan Williams and Thomas Meyer's circle of artists meeting at their Corn Close cottage in Dentdale, going on to edit the festschrift Catgut and Blossom, publish Williams’ Metafours for Mysophobes, introduce readings at the Victoria Miro Gallery and write an online study: ‘Mustard and Evening Primrose: the Astringent Extravagance of Jonathan Williams’ metafours’.[citation needed]
An active performer and teacher, Annwn has appeared extensively on the readings circuits and at Carmarthen Arts Festival, Hay-on-Wye Alternative Poetry, Ilkley and Otley Arts Festivals, Beehive Poets, Warrington Arts and many university conferences. Part of his reading at the Other Room Experimental Poetry is available on film. He has been involved particularly with the David Jones Society, and has also given talks for the William Blake Society and the George Mackay Brown Fellowship, Orkney. 2014 saw the culmination of Annwn's six-year project: Prismatic Array involving his multi-medial responses to the work of Barbara Hepworth, Claude Cahun, Maya Deren and Dylan Thomas, culminating in readings and illustrated talks at the Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield, Leeds City Art Gallery and the Dylan Unchained centennial conference, Swansea University.[citation needed]
Since 1981, Annwn has lived in the Wakefield area of West Yorkshire.
Honors and awards
He is a recipient of first prize in the Inter-Collegiate Eisteddfod,[citation needed] the Bunford Prize for the highest mark in English in his university year,[citation needed] the Cardiff International Poetry Prize, a Ferguson Centre award for African and Asian Studies and his study, Sexuality and the Gothic Magic Lantern, was nominated for the Allan Lloyd Smith Memorial Prize.
