R.S. Thomas

Having visited Aberdaron in 2019 I had found some poems of R.S. Thomas there that impressed me. 'Kneeling', I remember. The combination of nature, faith and language very much appealed to me. 

I had picked up his biography 'The man who went into the West' there and read it a year later. I wrote: 'If being eccentric is very British, then. R.S. Thomas certainly is. A Welsh nationalist who speaks with an aristocratic English drawl. Who yearns to express himself in Welsh, but only has the words for it in English. He loved nature, and had an uncomfortable relationship with his parishioners. Essentially unknowable, except through his poems. As a biography, it is a triumph, full of rich descriptions by people who knew him and in their diversity reflect him. Beautiful links to Lewis (God sang creation into being), and Dorothy Sayers (man comes closest to God in creating)'. 

Another year later, I encountered a special Adventbook. Written by Carys Walsh, it not only was a beautiful guide through advent, but also an inroad into reading poetry. Though a reader, poetry had uptil then eluded me. This book (and later the Poetry Unbound podcast by Padraig O' Tuama') helped me understand how to read poetry. It was an absolute revelation. I am very thankful too, to the hospitality of St Mary's Kilburn & St James' West Hampstead who held an online reading group around the book that Advent. 

All this inspired me to make a personal selection of 40 poems for Lent, 2021. I shared this on the Facebook group devoted to Thomas's work (highly recommended!). This year, I became a member of the R.S. Thomas & M.E. Eldridge Foundation. They requested permission to share the selection, which is the reason I publish it here.