R. S. Thomas: Everyman Poetry

by R.S. Thomas, Anthony Thwaite (Editor)

A best of R.S. Thomas's poems in a beautiful new gift editionR. S. Thomas (1913- 2000) was born in Cardiff. He studied classics, then theology and, after ordination, served six rural Welsh parishes for most of his life. His first book of poems was published in 1946. He won the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1964 and published regularly, Collected Poems 1945-90 marking his eightieth birthday.

Genres: Poetry

114 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 26, 2012

About the author

Ronald Stuart Thomas (1913-2000) (otherwise stylised as R.S. Thomas) was a Welsh poet and Anglican priest who was noted for his nationalism, spirituality and deep dislike of the anglicisation of Wales.

Reviews

[Ruth Brumby · Rating 3 out of 5]

The poems of RS Thomas are beautifully written. I loved the precision and complexity of the use of language with each word accurately chosen and placed. His use of word order and line endings is particularly powerful. You can see the heritage of Welsh poetry in the use of word sounds - rhymes, alliteration, half rhymes etc.
However I most often don't agree with his views.

[Ilah Murphy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is not for some.

I just didn't care for the book. Disappointing. It is moody & dark. Even good words of love, marriage, seasons, are encased, restricted & scented & shaded with shadows of despair, sadness, discouragement, ......just cold & hopeless. The more I read, the less inclined I was to keep going.

[Roger P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. The slice of life quality of Thomas' poetry blew me away. The final poem in the volume dealing with watching his wife age and her subsequent death is one of the most heartfelt poems about married life that I have read.

[Simon Stegall · Rating 4 out of 5]

RS Thomas was an Welsh priest and poet. I deeply appreciated this collection of his works, though I wish now I had picked up one of his actual publications instead of a compilation, as his poems seem to move through certain moods chronologically. His poems are mainly concerned with the craggy Wales, the craggy Welsh, and Thomas' foray across his craggy Christianity. It's very craggy stuff. Best way I can describe it. An excerpt:

"Evans? Yes, many a time I came down his bare flight
Of stairs into the gaunt kitchen
With its wood fire, where crickets sang Accompaniment to the black kettle’s
Whine, and so into the cold
Dark to smother in the thick tide
Of night that drifted about the walls
Of his stark farm on the hill ridge.
It was not the dark filling my eyes
And mouth appalled me; not even the drip Of rain like blood from the one tree
Weather-tortured. It was the dark
Silting the veins of that sick man
I left stranded upon the vast
And lonely shore of his bleak bed."

[Len Knighton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thomas is provocative as a poet and theologian and those poems I enjoyed. I also was stirred, as one of Welsh descent, by the poems of his homeland. But those composed a minority of the poems. Perhaps he is just over my head.

[Fazackerly Toast · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a real poet