The Writers of Wales Database

GRIFFITHS, VIVIAN LAWRENCE

Website: http://alcibiades9.tripod.com/

Poet and  novelist. Born St Thomas, Swansea, 1935. Joined Merchant Navy 1950 and sailed in Deck Dept with various shipping companies to many parts of the world until 1960. Worked as a steel erector and rigger for two years then went to Coleg Harlech and the University of Wales, Bangor. Graduated in English and History in 1966; gained a teaching diploma at the University of Wales, Swansea in 1967; and studied Adult Education and Media Studies at Manchester and London universities. Became a teacher and lecturer. Is now retired and lives with his wife, Jane, with whom he shows and breeds Staffordshire Bull Terriers.

He began writing in the 1950s and was published by The College of the Sea. Later he read some of his poems aboard the famous clipper ship, Cutty Sark, in London and contributed to a collection of verse by merchant seamen, Voices from the Sea. He has had eight collections of poetry published, and one novel. Viv is a member of the Merchant Navy Association, the Welsh Archaeology Society and the Oystermouth Social Club. His hobbies are country walking, gambling, social drinking and reading and writing.

Selected Publications:
Myths from a Modern Mariner and Others (Vivian L. Griffiths, 1966)
Sinews from Salt (Christopher Davies, 1969)
Juxtapositions (Tuba Press, 1978)
Moonscapes, Seascrapes (Tuba Press, 1982)
First Trip (Tuba Press, 1987)
Ways and Weatherings (Tuba Press, 1998)
Rippling Yarns: Scenes and Stories (Tuba Press, 2005)
Nocturne for a Jazz Guitar (Pericles Press, 2007)
Escaping the Shadow of the Gods (Pericles Press, 2007)
Scribblings of a Swansea Jack (Pericles Press, 2007)
Bemused and Mumbling (Pericles Press, 2007) 
Contrivors and Survivors (Tuba Press, 2007)
Monty Python - The Ideology of the Grotesque (Pericles Press, 2009)