Here are thirteen of Huw's poems and short prose pieces that have given him great pleasure and which, hopefully, will give you the same. It is a collection of earlier work which is often less structured that more recent verse but which, nevertheless, still shows the meticulous craftsmanship that all Huw's work has. The image for the CD is taken from a painting called 'Cards' by Huw's friend, Karin Mear.

1. BAD, BISCUIT BOY is about 'Jarvis,' Huw's adopted cat, and is essentially a piece of affectionate doggerel about a well-loved feline companion.

2. COMING OF AGE is a poem about an amalgamation of Huw's female friends who struggled to come to terms with their sixtieth birthdays and advancing years.

3. Huw is strangely vague about CRUEL WORLD, not saying who it's about or why he wrote it, but to me this has all the hallmarks of a 'revenge' poem!

4. FULL FLIGHT is a short story about an embarrassing early morning encounter with the postman. I'm not sure I entirely believe it but, who knows, fiction is often stranger than truth!

5. JUST GEORGE is a 'commissioned' poem about the singer George Melly who, during the later years of his life, had a country retreat near Brecon. George was a controversial figure and a man of many contradictions but little or none of this shows in this poem that, instead, only sings his praises.

6. I very much like both the words and the recording of SEPTEMBER SADNESS. It's both a celebration of that lovely time of the year and a kind of lament for the passing of summer. It's read slowly which builds a sense of expectation for the last line “I long for the sea.” A simple device which works very well indeed!

7. STILL BEARING THE SCARS is Huw reminiscing about the nineteen sixties, a time when he was a boy and good exciting things were happening. The motorways and the Severn Bridge were being built, Jaguar had made the E-Type, Concorde was being constructed over in Bristol and the prototype Hovercraft was being tested on the beach at Weston-Super- Mare.

8. I just love this recording of Huw's poem THE EXPERIMENTAL POET because of David Cooper Orton's fantastic 'Clint Eastwood/Spaghetti Western type' soundtrack, which is so inspired and well -judged. The words aren't half-bad too!

9. THE OCCASIONAL WREN is a poem written about Brecon Cathedral on a gloomy November day. I particularly like the description of the damp that seeps through the floor as being 'vengeful and unstoppable' and being also 'like in Venice at high tide.' Huw often writes about all manner of things ecclesiastical almost always with great affection and I find these poems very similar in tone at least to those of John Betjeman and equally 'soothing.'

10. THE LAST WORD is on the face of it a very simple poem but it relies on a rigid six-syllable line construction which is difficult to write. It's performed here 'panto-style' by Huw and the actress Sian Drinan.

11. Huw told me that one day he was listening to a radio phone-in about things that made people feel good and someone rang in saying that 'seeing the moon in the day' did so and, by sheer coincidence, he looked out of the window and saw a row of tall cricket-bat willows swaying in the breeze, which gave him the first two lines of the poem WOODSMOKE.

12. YELLOW MOON is a short and very simple poem that's given much pathos by Malcolm Scott Wilson's musical accompaniment with a tune called 'The Dark Isle' which, apparently, was used as theme music for a television programme.

Jill Hall, Writer and Critic, May, 2014.