Selected Poems

'One of the most uncompromising, purest and most sustained lyric voices of his century' - Guardian

RS Thomas was the greatest religious poet writing in English in the 20th century. His poems are an expression of his lifelong argument with himself, and of his insistent search for God. This title presents a selection of his poems that reveal a wide range of themes and concerns.RS Thomas was the greatest religious poet writing in English in the 20th century, but the 270 poems he chose for this definitive selection reveal a wide range of themes and concerns. He was a passionate Welsh patriot, but also an outspoken critic of his countrymen. His poems are an expression of his lifelong argument with himself, of his insistent search for God. In them he grapples with ideas of Welshness, with issues of technology, pollution, the decline of culture. He wrote too about love, about landscape, nature and birds. His is an urgent, prophetic and unique voice.