when he was growing up, and it surfaces in his "yarns", although he did not use it in his conversation. His craft was an oral one, and his verses came to him without conscious effort. Most of his work deals with farming, the opening of a new road, the passing away of a respected member of the community, the arrival of a new vicar, and country craft skills. His working method was based on contemplation, rather than study. If he knew he was to be expected to "take a corner" at an event and recite, he would go to do some work alone in a field, ploughing, or working the horses, and by the end of the day the poem would be there, in his head. After this, he rarely altered a word. Afterwards, he would usually write the poem down, but not always. The poems were usually based on experience and fact. J. Mansel Thomas noted that he: "had a phenomenal memory, 'for everything except the price of beef', and I found that even after twelve years away [in Australia], he could still switch without hesitation to any one of a hundred or so of his poems, many with over a dozen verses – a gift that reminds one of another rural genius of Gower – Phil Tanner. He couldn’t recall, however, whether he had written them all down". Cyril Gwynn's poetic form comprises a narrative folk ballad which relies on a strong rhyme to "clinch the last line’s ironic twist" which would often "bring the house down." However, the "language is simple and, with the exception of his conventional hymns to nature, eschews the 'poetic'" To quote J. Mansel Thomas: "The sentiments may have been obvious, but the treatment was fresh and amusing, the style uniquely his, with a humour and native wit, often barbed but never lethal, an observation of human nature that was shrewd and true, and a gift for rhythm and rhyme that made it all sound so natural". Although his house was always "full of books", he limited his reading in poetry so as not to fall too heavily under the influence of other poets, and so lose his spontaneity. He often satirises the verbal pomposities of academics, or the socially pretentious. His poem "Speech" uses a light-hearted approach to deal with the serious problem of using alien speech in a situation where local