An episode from 9/11/24: Tonight, I read six poems by the Welsh poet, R. S. Thomas (1913-2000). A priest in the Anglican church from 1936 until 1978, Thomas wrote some of the most moving poems we have about religious belief, rural life, and the simple feeling some of us have of belonging nowhere. It is said that he barely lost out on the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995. They can all be found in Collected Poems 1945-1990:
- Affinity (1946)
- The Country Clergy (1958)
- Ap Huw’s Testament (1958)
- The Face (1966)
- Suddenly (1983)
- The Moor (1966)
Audio of Thomas reading “The Moor” comes from the incredible collection R. S. Thomas Reading the Poems. Sections from his biography come from his page at the Poetry Archive and his obituary at the Guardian.
You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I’ve also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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