R S Thomas (poet)

‘The Bush’ - #RSThomas
(Later Poems, 1972–1982, Macmillan London)

‘Aleph’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem

‘Aleph’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem

‘The Bright Field’ - #RSThomas
(Laboratories of the Spirit, Macmillan)

‘Children’s Song’ - #RSThomas (Song at the Year's Turning, Rupert Hart-Davis)

Hello, if you like #RSThomas then you might be interested in following this Bluesky account @RSThomaspoet, also facebook.com/groups/RSThomas/
- share his poems, quotes, events, info, Q+A, etc.
- and there’s a Society you can join… rsthomaspoetry.co.uk/rs-thomas-me-eldridge-society/
please re-post?

‘The Bright Field’ - #RSThomas
(Laboratories of the Spirit, Macmillan)

‘Children’s Song’ - #RSThomas (Song at the Year's Turning, Rupert Hart-Davis)

Text of poem - I think that maybe I will be a little surer of being a little nearer. That's all. Eternity is in the understanding that that little is more than enough.

‘I think that maybe…’ - #RSThomas
(from AD in Counterpoint, @BloodaxeBooks)

Text of poem - Arriving. A maze, he said, and at the centre the Minotaur awaits us. There are turnings that are no through road to the fearful. By one I came travelling it like a gallery of the imagination, pausing to look at the invisible portraits of brave men. Their deeds rustled like dry leaves under my tread. The scent of them was the dust we throw in the eyes of the beast.

‘Arriving’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Cyrraedd #Arriving
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem

Text of poem - Arriving. A maze, he said, and at the centre the Minotaur awaits us. There are turnings that are no through road to the fearful. By one I came travelling it like a gallery of the imagination, pausing to look at the invisible portraits of brave men. Their deeds rustled like dry leaves under my tread. The scent of them was the dust we throw in the eyes of the beast.

‘Arriving’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Cyrraedd #Arriving
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem

‘The Empty Church’ - #RSThomas
(Frequencies, Macmillan)

‘Swallows’ - #RSThomas
(No Truce with the Furies, @BloodaxeBooks)

‘Lore’ - #RSThomas
(Tares, Rupert Hart-Davis)

Text of poem - Voices. Who to believe? The linnet sings bell-like, a tinkling music. It says life is contained here; is a jewel in a shell casket, lying among down. There is another voice, far out in space, whose persuasiveness is the distance from which it speaks. Divided mind, the message is always in two parts. Must it be on a cross it is made one?

‘Voices’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan
#Lleisiau #Voices
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem

Text of poem - Voices. Who to believe? The linnet sings bell-like, a tinkling music. It says life is contained here; is a jewel in a shell casket, lying among down. There is another voice, far out in space, whose persuasiveness is the distance from which it speaks. Divided mind, the message is always in two parts. Must it be on a cross it is made one?

‘Voices’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan
#Lleisiau #Voices
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem

By all accounts this was a wonderful event in Bangor Cathedral on Thursday, marking 25 years since the death of RS Thomas. It included talks, art and photography, beautiful music and of course poetry reading. Here’s a link to a recording of the event: www.youtube.com/live/RbFUoWF...

By all accounts this was a wonderful event in Bangor Cathedral on Thursday, marking 25 years since the death of RS Thomas. It included talks, art and photography, beautiful music and of course poetry reading. Here’s a link to a recording of the event: www.youtube.com/live/RbFUoWF...

‘The Empty Church’ - #RSThomas
(Frequencies, Macmillan)

Yes indeed, it would be good to have the whole of it.

YouTube video by John Whittle 'The Minister' taster video.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the death of the great Welsh poet R.S. Thomas. Here, to mark this, is part of his long poem ‘The Minister’. (It would be good to have the whole of it.)
youtu.be/XioxMW7g2UI?...

Text of poem - Swallows. To the swallows: 'See you next year.' These swallows? No matter. On the wires will be swallows, the music of time in customary notation. Not like me whose migrations are endless, though my perch be of bone. One April I will return to it no more. As nature replaces its creatures so life will replace me, a migrant between nominatives, a new singer of an old song, an innovator too regardless of time for the time-keeping swallows.

Bu farw'r bardd Cymreig #RSThomas 25 ones #ArYDiwrnodHwn yn 2000. Dyma'i gerdd 'Swallows' (cyhoeddwyd yn ‘No Truce with the Furies’ gan @BloodaxeBooks)

Text of poem - Swallows. To the swallows: 'See you next year.' These swallows? No matter. On the wires will be swallows, the music of time in customary notation. Not like me whose migrations are endless, though my perch be of bone. One April I will return to it no more. As nature replaces its creatures so life will replace me, a migrant between nominatives, a new singer of an old song, an innovator too regardless of time for the time-keeping swallows.

Welsh poet #RSThomas died 25 years ago #OnThisDay in 2000.
Here’s his poem ‘Swallows’ (published in ‘No Truce with the Furies’ by @BloodaxeBooks)

Hello, if you like #RSThomas then you might be interested in following this Bluesky account @RSThomaspoet, also facebook.com/groups/RSThomas/
- share his poems, quotes, events, info, Q+A, etc.
- and there’s a Society you can join… rsthomaspoetry.co.uk/rs-thomas-me-eldridge-society/
please re-post?

‘The Moon in Lleyn’ - #RSThomas
(Laboratories of the Spirit, Macmillan)

Text of poem - Swallows. To the swallows: 'See you next year.' These swallows? No matter. On the wires will be swallows, the music of time in customary notation. Not like me whose migrations are endless, though my perch be of bone. One April I will return to it no more. As nature replaces its creatures so life will replace me, a migrant between nominatives, a new singer of an old song, an innovator too regardless of time for the time-keeping swallows.

Welsh poet #RSThomas died 25 years ago #OnThisDay in 2000.
Here’s his poem ‘Swallows’ (published in ‘No Truce with the Furies’ by @BloodaxeBooks)

Text of poem - Swallows. To the swallows: 'See you next year.' These swallows? No matter. On the wires will be swallows, the music of time in customary notation. Not like me whose migrations are endless, though my perch be of bone. One April I will return to it no more. As nature replaces its creatures so life will replace me, a migrant between nominatives, a new singer of an old song, an innovator too regardless of time for the time-keeping swallows.

Bu farw'r bardd Cymreig #RSThomas 25 ones #ArYDiwrnodHwn yn 2000. Dyma'i gerdd 'Swallows' (cyhoeddwyd yn ‘No Truce with the Furies’ gan @BloodaxeBooks)

Text of poem - Fair Day. They come in from the fields with the dew and the buttercup dust on their boots. It was not they nor their ancestors crucified Christ. They look up at what the town has done to him, hanging his body in stone on a stone cross, as though to commemorate the bringing of the divine beast to bay and disabling him. He is hung up high, but higher are the cranes and scaffolding of the future. And they stand by, men from the past, whose rôle is to assist in the destruction of the past, bringing their own beasts in to offer their blood up on a shoddier altar. The town is malignant. It grows, and what it feeds on is what these men call their home. Is there praise here? There is the noise of those buying and selling and mortgaging their conscience, while the stone eyes look down tearlessly. There is not even anger in them any more.

‘Fair Day’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem

Text of poem - Fair Day. They come in from the fields with the dew and the buttercup dust on their boots. It was not they nor their ancestors crucified Christ. They look up at what the town has done to him, hanging his body in stone on a stone cross, as though to commemorate the bringing of the divine beast to bay and disabling him. He is hung up high, but higher are the cranes and scaffolding of the future. And they stand by, men from the past, whose rôle is to assist in the destruction of the past, bringing their own beasts in to offer their blood up on a shoddier altar. The town is malignant. It grows, and what it feeds on is what these men call their home. Is there praise here? There is the noise of those buying and selling and mortgaging their conscience, while the stone eyes look down tearlessly. There is not even anger in them any more.

‘Fair Day’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)
#Bardd #Barddoniaeth #Cerdd
#Poet #Poetry #Poem

‘Voices’ - #RSThomas
(Between Here and Now, Macmillan)