Davies was born in Born in Rhymney, near Merthyr Tydfill. The son of a colliery worker, Davies also worked as a miner from an early age.  An accident which resulted in him losing a finger and his participation in the General Strike of 1926 which caused his pit to close led to him losing his job. Thereafter he became a teacher and taught at schools in London. He returned to Rhymney to teach in 1947. A confirmed Socialist, Davis poetry records the life and times of local people, worklessness, poverty and isolation.  His work was published in ‘Comment’ and ‘The Left Review’. Davies recorded in an unpublished diary, now held at the National Library at Aberystwyth), “Any subject which has not man at its core is anathema to me.  The meanest tramp on the road is ten times more interesting than the loveliest garden in the world”.  Davies died at the age of 48. 

Key publications are Gwalia Deserta (Dent, 1938), The Angry Summer: A Poem of 1926 (Faber and Faber, 1943) and Tonypandy and other poems (Faber and Faber 1945. ‘The Angry Summer was considered by T.S. Eliot to be ‘the finest poetical document yet made about any specific time and place’.