T Gwynn Jones was born in 1871 in Betws yn Rhos.
When he was only 14 he won a poetry competition in the children's publication Trysorfa'r Plant. The title of his poem was The Potato.
He was desperate to pursue an academic career when young but failed due to his poor health and family circumstances. He became a policeman and then a journalist. He finally realised his ambition by becoming a lecturer in the Welsh department at the University of Aberystwyth in middle age.
T Gwynn Jones revitalised Welsh poetry at this time. He rejected old fashioned vocabulary and he experimented with poetic forms.
The overriding theme in his work was the search for an ideal community. He knew that he was living in an imperfect world and his poems idealised how life should be.
© 2012 S4C
O Gymru / Made in Wales