Nature Book Reader June 2020 - Flipbook - Page 94
A Nature Book Reader
JAMES OLDHAM
NME, A&R, A&M
Selected Poems by RS Thomas
It would be misleading to
describe RS Thomas as a nature
poet, and it would be false to
call the Penguin edition of his
Selected Poems a nature book.
Thomas was an Anglican
clergyman for over 40 years,
and much of this collection
is inevitably devoted to his
relationship with God (“this
great absence that is like a
presence”). For this writer,
though, the great beauty of
it lies in his writing about the
natural world.
Thomas was a deeply
contrary figure – a cleric who
doubted, and frequently
vocalised that doubt, an
entrenched Welsh nationalist
who married an English
woman, and a pacifist who
sympathised with those
who burnt down Welsh
holiday cottages. He also
lived a life embedded in the
landscape of his beloved
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Wales, unencumbered by
either friendships or modern
comforts (he even threw out
the family vacuum cleaner
on the grounds that it was too
noisy) and it was this “narrow
experience” which helped give
his poetry such a concentrated
purity of vision.
His views of the contours
of Northern Wales have often
been described as harsh and
merciless, but there’s a chill
beauty to them as well. He
writes superbly on rivers
and fishing (Afon Rhiw, The
River), as well as birds (indeed
his only recreation was birdwatching), but the greatest
of his poems are where the
connection between the
spiritual and natural world
is made; Raptor, where God
is imagined as “an enormous
owl”, for instance, or my
personal favourite, The
Moor, a poem that articulates
