Uncollected Poems

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

R.S. Thomas (1913-2000) is a major writer of our time, one of the finest religious poets in the English language and one of Wales's greatest poets. His output was prolific: over six decades he published some 25 individual collections of poems, as well as several volumes of prose. A substantial number of his poems, however, have hitherto remained uncollected, and often elusive - poems published in newspapers, magazines and journals (many of them obscure), as well as in private or limited editions. Uncollected Poems - published to mark the centenary of Thomas's birth - brings together for the first time a rigorous selection of the best of these. The fruit of several years' research by Tony Brown and Jason Walford Davies, the volume makes available work which spans the whole of Thomas's career - from an early sonnet to his first wife, M.E. Eldridge (included in his first, unpublished, collection Spindrift in the late 1930s) and an early Iago Prytherch poem published in the Dublin Magazine, to poems which are powerful expressions of the metaphysical meditations of his later years. R.S. Thomas's Uncollected Poems takes its place alongside Collected Poems 1945-1990 (Dent, 1993; Phoenix, 2000), Selected Poems (Penguin, 2003) and Collected Later Poems 1988-2000 (Bloodaxe Books, 2004). It gives readers of R.S. Thomas's work access to much new and fascinating material. Uncollected Poems is a companion volume to R.S. Thomas's Collected Later Poems 1988-2000 (Bloodaxe Books, 2004), the sequel to Collected Poems 1945-1990 (Dent, 1993; Phoenix Press, 2000), which only covers his collections up to Experimenting with an Amen (1986). Collected Later Poems 1988-2000 reprints in full the contents of R.S. Thomas's last five collections, The Echoes Return Slow (Macmillan, 1988: unavailable for many years), and Bloodaxe's Counterpoint (1990), Mass for Hard Times (1992), No Truce with the Furies (1995) and the posthumously published Residues (2002). There is no overlap between the two Bloodaxe editions: none of the poems in Residues, uncollected at the time of his death in 2000, is included in Uncollected Poems.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 11)
• The Bat (p. 21)
• 'I never thought' (p. 22)
• July 5 1940 (p. 23)
• Confessions of an Anglo-Welshman (p. 24)
• Gideon Pugh (p. 25)
• Llanddewi Brefi (p. 27)
• Song (p. 28)
• Lines for Taliesin (p. 29)
• Three Countries (p. 30)
• Welsh Shepherd (p. 31)
• Y Gwladwr (p. 32)
• The Peasant [tr. Jason Walford Davies] (p. 33)
• The Two Sisters (p. 34)
• Auguries (p. 35)
• Darlington (p. 36)
• No Answer (p. 37)
• Peasant Girl Weeping (p. 38)
• Original Sin (p. 39)
• Proportions (p. 40)
• Somersby Brook (p. 41)
• A Welsh Ballad Singer (p. 42)
• Commission (p. 43)
• Farm Wives (p. 44)
• Growing Up (p. 45)
• Midnight on the Farm (p. 46)
• Not So (p. 47)
• Question (p. 50)
• Indoors (p. 51)
• The Meeting (p. 52)
• Hiker (p. 53)
• Brochure (p. 54)
• Exile (p. 55)
• Frontiers (p. 56)
• Work To Do (p. 57)
• Yesterday's Farm (p. 58)
• Half-past Five (p. 60)
• Two Versions of a Theme (p. 61)
• An Old Flame (p. 63)
• Images (p. 64)
• The Reader (p. 65)
• The Return (p. 66)
• The Need (p. 67)
• Song (p. 68)
• Thoughts by the Sea (p. 69)
• Aye, aye - (p. 70)
• The Grave (p. 71)
• Old Man (p. 72)
• Shame (p. 73)
• Some Place (p. 74)
• Symbols (p. 75)
• The Wisdom of Eliaser (p. 76)
• Ynys Enlli (p. 77)
• The Bank Clerk (p. 78)
• Farm-hand (p. 79)
• Nobodies (p. 80)
• Somebody (p. 81)
• Vocation (p. 82)
• Chat (p. 83)
• Dimensions (p. 85)
• Now (p. 86)
• Autobiography (p. 87)
• Inferno (p. 89)
• Sonata in X (p. 91)
• Hamlet (p. 94)
• Richard Hughes (p. 95)
• Where? (p. 96)
• The Climber (p. 97)
• Dedication (p. 98)
• Pension (p. 99)
• The Source (p. 100)
• Staying (p. 101)
• Coming of Age (p. 102)
• Progressions (p. 103)
• Appointments (p. 104)
• Cancellation (p. 106)
• Codex (p. 107)
• Coming True (p. 108)
• Converse (p. 109)
• General X (p. 110)
• Quest (p. 112)
• Sister Non (p. 113)
• Stop Press (p. 114)
• Excursion (p. 115)
• Grass Platforms (p. 116)
• The New Noah (p. 117)
• Predicaments (p. 118)
• The Tree (p. 119)
• The Big Preachers (p. 120)
• Cybi and Seiriol (p. 121)
• Feminine Gender (p. 122)
• Poets' Meeting (p. 123)
• Repertory (p. 124)
• The Undying (p. 125)
• The Cry (p. 126)
• Caught (p. 127)
• The View from Europe (p. 128)
• A Wish (p. 129)
• Al (p. 130)
• Epilogue (p. 131)
• Gwallter Mechain (p. 132)
• Insularities (p. 135)
• Cymru (Wales) (p. 138)
• Wings (p. 139)
• Process (p. 140)
• Sick Child (p. 141)
• Born Lost (p. 142)
• The Lesson (p. 143)
• Plas yn Rhiw (p. 144)
• A Species (p. 145)
• Abaty Cwm Hir (p. 147)
• Calling (p. 148)
• Elders (p. 149)
• Filming (p. 150)
• The Gallery (p. 151)
• In Memory of James and Frances Williams (p. 152)
• Oil (p. 155)
• Story (p. 156)
• Tourney (p. 157)
• The Hummingbird Never Came (p. 158)
• Pharpar (p. 159)
• Blackbird (p. 160)
• Diary (p. 161)
• Dreams (p. 162)
• Everywhere (p. 163)
• Island Boatman (p. 164)
• Talk (p. 165)
• 'Waiting for the tale to begin' (p. 166)
• Birthday (p. 167)
• The Father Dies (p. 168)
• Luminary (p. 169)
• The Hill (p. 170)
• In Memory of Ted Hughes (p. 171)
• 'The computer is unable' (p. 172)
• 'Easter. I approach' (p. 173)
• 'One drop of blood' (p. 174)
• 'A bird's prayer' (p. 175)
• 'Language has run its course' (p. 176)
• The Orphan (p. 177)
• Pact (p. 178)
• Bibliography (p. 181)