Organisers are getting ready to present their sixth annual poetry and art festival in Aberdaron this weekend.

As part of the RS Thomas & ME Eldridge Poetry & Art Festival, the RS Thomas & ME Eldridge Society has invited not one, but two former Archbishops of Wales as guest speakers.

Dr Rowan Williams and Rev Dr Barry Morgan will feature at the festival, as will Welsh poet Menna Elfyn, who hails from Carmarthen.

Ms Elfyn, who knew RS Thomas personally and has written half a dozen tribute poems to him as well as a commissioned libretto, Hymn to a Welshman, with composer Pwyll ap Siôn, will be leading a writing workshop and performing her poetry.

All three are recognised as international speakers with an interest in the life and work of Ronald Stuart Thomas.

A poet and a priest, Mr Thomas, who was born in 1913 and died in 2000, was regarded as one of Wales’ greatest poets, having been nominated for a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996.

He was also one of the few voices in the 1950s that spoke of the concerns for the loss of the Welsh language and culture.

Mr Thomas campaigned for the use of the Welsh language in public offices and in the curriculum of schools, and also for the right to have Welsh-language television and radio.

He and his wife, the artist Elsi Eldridge, lived in and around Aberdaron, his last parish, for nearly 30 years.

Mr Thomas died in 2000, aged 87, at his home in Pentrefelin.

The RS Thomas & ME Eldridge Society was formed “to honour the convergence of the creative lives” of the pair.

“For too long, their masterful contributions to literature and art have lacked the attention that a society can help them regain,” the society’s website explains.

The society’s annual Poetry and Art Festival in Aberdaron this weekend, carries forward the series of festivals that began there in 2014.

Also appearing at the festival is Ted Harrison from Aberystwyth.

The former BBC Radio 4 presenter and religious affairs correspondent has an art exhibition inspired by the life and work of RS Thomas.

Harrison has created works of art for London’s Guys Hospital and St Thomas’s Children’s Hospital.

Sandra Anstey, a former PhD student at Swansea University in the 1970s, will be playing previously unheard recordings of her conversations with RS Thomas, as well as extracts of a radio broadcast series for students.

She studied English literature at Reading University and then moved to the University of Wales, Swansea, where she completed her PhD study on the writings of RS Thomas.

There is a concert on Saturday evening with Côr Meibion Carnguwch, and Ms Elfyn reading her poetry.

Earlier in the day, at 10.30am, there is a presentation by society patron Dr Williams at Crud y Werin School Hall.

Rev Morgan will be preaching in St Hywyn’s Church on Sunday morning.

The festival runs from this Thursday, 20 June, through to Sunday, 23 June, in various venues in and around Aberdaron.

Further details of the programme can be found on the festival website at www.rsthomaspoetry.co.uk

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