An Empty Chair: The Tragic Story of Welsh Poet Hedd Wyn

Gr 6 Up—Teenager Anni thinks her brother Ellis might be "the worst soldier ever," but Ellis's bardic name, Hedd Wyn (Blessed Peace in Welsh), suggests that heroism exists beyond the battlefield. This slim WWI novel is a translation of Llewelyn's prizewinning Welsh-language original, based on the true story of Ellis Evans's posthumous award of a bardic chair at the National Eisteddfod of 1917. Despite this ambitious setup, the novel strives for accessibility. Anni struggles with shoplifting, boys, an uncle's war injury, and missing Ellis. Her perspective emphasizes Ellis's quirky lovability rather than his genius. This demystification aligns Ellis with the other Welsh men who serve the British cause but feel like "outsiders" on the front. It is possible that, in Wales, Evans's poetry is so well known that accentuating his poetry would be unnecessary (the translation provides a brief cultural orientation via foreword and glossary). However, the novel's one poem, "Gwenfron and I," is lovely, and including more of Ellis's war poetry would only strengthen the novel's pacifist message. (Ellis's status in the community also contests the idea that poetry is boring, inaccessible, or irrelevant.) Ultimately, after his death, the empty bard's chair delivered to the Evans family is a poignant image for a loss that is personal, and national, specific to Ellis's talent and generally applicable to the loss of life suffered in war.