Indeed, and obviously, this was a characteristic of all volunteers, visitors and staff at the festival. I was able to say “Wales” without having to explain that no, I wasn't referring to that blowhole- topped fishy mammal we all know and love. It was refreshing to find the people there filled with curiosity and questions, instead of the apathy we are so sick with. After every reading, people would come up and speak with you, and really listen, with an interest in learning something new. Many visitors seemed to have Welsh ancestry, so this may explain the enthusiasm, but generally I found our American cousins less sour, and more sincere, than we are.


I also found my crabby, grudging, half-love of our country swell into a sense of near-belonging. As the only non-Welsh-speaking poet, some small, bitter part of me had expected to feel excluded/inferior. In fact, the other poets were all lovely, as were the Welsh speakers (who, for once, were in the majority!) - I would sit down to dinner at a table of 8 or so other participants and they, knowing of my inability to speak Welsh, would switch instantly to English. I felt that this was a deliberate act of courtesy, even though I was the “minority language” at the table. My previous encounters with a few hoity-toity Welsh speakers, who'd looked down on me for not being able to speak my grandparents' tongue, had tinged my feeling for the language with a sort of disdain. I can speak more Japanese than I can Welsh (I lived in Kyoto for several years) but now, for the first time, I found myself wishing I could understand what Ifor ap Glyn, Aneirin Karadog, and Gwyneth Glyn were saying. The performance style of each poet was so wonderfully expressive that the subject of their works was (with the help of short introductions) clear; still, I wanted to understand the individual words, each subtle nuance...


Fired up by the festival experience, then, I find myself now with a “Learn Welsh” set of CDs and an almost (dare I say it) American sense of positive possibility. Can I learn my own country's language in the three months promised by the accompanying CD booklet? You bet your ass I can. I – AmeriCAN.


Mab Jones


10


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