Her poetry books include two dual-language selections, Eucalyptus: Detholiad o Gerddi / Selected Poems 1978-1994 (Gomer Press, 1995), and Perfect Blemish: New & Selected Poems / Perffaith Nam: Dau Ddetholiad & Cherddi Newydd 1995-2007 (Bloodaxe Books, 2007), a Welsh-only selection Merch Perygl: Cerddi 1976-2011 (Gomer Press, 2011), and two later dual-language collections from Bloodaxe, Murmur (2012), a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation, and Bondo (2017). Parch (2025) is Menna Elfyn’s sixth poetry book from Bloodaxe. For the first time in this collection, she has written many of the poems direct into English, and translated some of them herself.

Optimist Absoliwt: Cofiant Eluned Phillips, her biography of the poet Eluned Phillips, was published (in Welsh) in 2016, and Cwsg: am dro yn ôl, a book about sleep illustrated by Sarah Williams, in 2019, both from Gomer Press. Her most recent Welsh language collection, Tosturi (Mercy), with illustrations by Meinir Mathias (Cyhoeddiadau Barddas, 2022), was shortlisted for the 2023 Welsh-language Wales Book of the Year Poetry Award. 

When not travelling the world for readings and residencies, she lives in Carmarthen. She was Wales’s National Children’s Laureate in 2002, and was made President of Wales PEN Cymru in 2014. She was, until 2016, Creative Director in the School of Cultural Studies at the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David; she is also Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing. She won a Cholmondeley Award in 2022, a prize which recognises a poet's body of work.