In addition to managing her farm independently, James developed her poetic and musical skills, playing the harp and singing her own poems in the house and the fields according to strong local oral traditions. Her poems reflect her personal life experiences as a woman, wife, and mother. Nine poems by her survive, a high score for a Welshwoman before the nineteenth century. At least two of these poems were included in a manuscript volume, ‘Llyfr Coch Angharad James’, whose present whereabouts is unknown (DNB).