R.S. Thomas
born March 29, 1913, Cardiff, Glamorgan
[now in Cardiff], Wales
died September 25, 2000, Llanfairynghornwy,
Gwynedd
Welsh clergyman and poet whose lucid,
austere verse expresses an undeviating
affirmation of the values of the common man.
Thomas was educated in Wales at
University College at Bangor (1935) and
ordained in the Church of Wales (1936), in
which he held appointments in several
parishes. He published his first volume of
poetry in 1946 and gradually developed his
unadorned style with each new collection.
His early poems, most notably those found in
Stones of the Field (1946) and Song at the
Year’s Turning: Poems 1942–1954 (1955),
contained a harshly critical but
increasingly compassionate view of the Welsh
people and their stark homeland. In Thomas’s
later volumes, starting with Poetry for
Supper (1958), the subjects of his poetry
remained the same, yet his questions became
more specific, his irony more bitter, and
his compassion deeper. In such later works
as The Way of It (1977), Frequencies (1978),
Between Here and Now (1981), and Later Poems
1972–1982 (1983), Thomas was not without
hope when he described with mournful
derision the cultural decay affecting his
parishioners, his country, and the modern
world. Though an ardent Welsh nationalist,
Thomas learned to speak Welsh only in his
30s and did not feel comfortable writing
poetry in that tongue; however, Neb (1985;
“No One”; Eng. trans. Autobiographies), a
collection of autobiographical essays, was
written in Welsh. Thomas was awarded the
Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1964. His
Collected Poems 1945–1990 was published in
1993.
