New & Selected Poems 1995-2007 / Dau Ddetholiad & Cherddi Newydd 1995-2007
Publication Date : 25 Oct 2007
Contents List
11 Introduction
21 The Bat
22 ‘I never thought’
23 July 5 1940
24 Confessions of an Anglo-Welshman
25 Gideon Pugh
27 Llanddewi Brefi
28 Song
29 Lines for Taliesin
30 Three Countries
31 Welsh Shepherd
32 Y Gwladwr
33 The Peasant [tr. Jason Walford Davies]
34 The Two Sisters
35 Auguries
36 Darlington
37 No Answer
38 Peasant Girl Weeping
39 Original Sin
40 Proportions
41 Somersby Brook
42 A Welsh Ballad Singer
43 Commission
44 Farm Wives
45 Growing Up
46 Midnight on the Farm
47 Not So
50 Question
51 Indoors
52 The Meeting
53 Hiker
54 Brochure
55 Exile
56 Frontiers
57 Work To Do
58 Yesterday’s Farm
60 Half-past Five
61 Two Versions of a Theme
63 An Old Flame
64 Images
65 The Reader
66 The Return
67 The Need
68Song
69 Thoughts by the Sea
70 Aye, aye –
71 The Grave
72 Old Man
73 Shame
74 Some Place
75 Symbols
76 The Wisdom of Eliaser
77 Ynys Enlli
78 The Bank Clerk
79 Farm-hand
80 Nobodies
81 Somebody
82 Vocation
83 Chat
85 Dimensions
86 Now
87 Autobiography
89 Inferno
91 Sonata in X
94 Hamlet
95 Richard Hughes
96 Where?
97 The Climber
98 Dedication
99 Pension
100 The Source
101 Staying
102 Coming of Age
103 Progressions
104 Appointments
106 Cancellation
107 Codex
108 Coming True
109 Converse
110 General X
112 Quest
113Sister Non
114 Stop Press
115 Excursion
116 Grass Platforms
117 The New Noah
118 Predicaments
119 The Tree
120 The Big Preachers
121 Cybi and Seiriol
122 Feminine Gender
123 Poets’ Meeting
124 Repertory
125 The Undying
126 The Cry
127 Caught
128 The View from Europe
129 A Wish
130 A1
131 Epilogue
132 Gwallter Mechain
135 Insularities
138 Cymru (Wales)
139 Wings
140 Process
141 Sick Child
142 Born Lost
143 The Lesson
144 Plas yn Rhiw
145 A Species
147 Abaty Cwm Hir
148 Calling
149 Elders
150 Filming
151 The Gallery
152 In Memory of James and Frances Williams
155 Oil
156 Story
157 Tourney
158 The Hummingbird Never Came
159 Pharpar
160 Blackbird
161 Diary
162 Dreams
163 Everywhere
164 Island Boatman
165 Talk
166 ‘Waiting for the tale to begin’
167 Birthday
168 The Father Dies
169 Luminary
170 The Hill
171 In Memory of Ted Hughes
172 ‘The computer is unable’
173 ‘Easter. I approach’
174 ‘One drop of blood’
175 ‘A bird’s prayer’
176 ‘Language has run its course’
177 The Orphan
178 Pact
181 Bibliography
Related Reviews
'Gathered in from far and wide, and chronicling sixty years of austere devotion to language, these poems remind us that brevity was for R.S. Thomas ever the soul of passion, and unnerving honesty his guarantor of truth. Bitter elegies for the "botched land" of Wales and baffled encounters with "the incorrigibly human" here keep company with jeremiads for his civilisation and the sound of one hand clapping for his God. But, most touchingly for this laureate of loneliness, there are also occasional gentle, shy poems of love, even in old age: "Come to me a moment, stand,/ Ageing yet lovely still,/ At my side…"' – Professor M. Wynn Thomas.
'The centenary of Thomas’s birth affords an opportunity to rediscover one of Wales’s greatest poets. Many of the 139 “lost” poems here address the clergyman’s persistent themes: his country; his elusive God; landscape and the characters who seem to grow out of it. The most poignant lines are on love – often lost or stifled, but quietly celebrated.' - Maria Crawford, Financial Times Summer Books Guide.
'The publication of 139 “lost” poems...offers refreshed perspectives on a Welshman who wrote his poetry in English...These “uncollected” poems also illustrate the range of Thomas's work: his precise imagery; his prophetic anger as the natural world is threatened by “the machine” and his fierce identity as a Welsh person...' - Dr Martyn Halsall, Church Times.