r.s. thomas (1913-2000) is one of the major poets of our time, as well as one of the finest religious poets in the English language and Wales's greatest poet. This substantial gathering of his late poems shows us the final flowering of a truly great poet still writing at the height of his powers right through his 70s and 80s. It begins with his autobiographical sequence The Echoes Return Slow, which has been unavailable for many years, and goes up to Residues, written immediately before his death at the age of 87. These powerful poems - about time and history, the self, love, the machine, the Cross and prayer - cover all of his major areas of questioning. This is R.S. Thomas in a winter light, his fury concentrated on the inhumanity of man and modern technology, his gaze absorbed by the God he felt in Nature, but finding nourishment in 'waste places'. At the same time he writes with resigned feeling and immense insight, as well as grim humour and playful irony, of isolation, ageing, marriage and 'love's shining greenhouses'. For Thomas, 'Poetry is that / which arrives at the intellect /by way of the heart.'

诗人简介

R. S.托马斯（Ronald Stuart Thomas, 1913—2000），威尔士诗坛泰斗，20世纪英语世界最伟大的抒情诗人和宗教诗人之一。著有诗集20余部，多次获得各种诗歌奖项和荣誉，包括英女王诗歌金奖（1964），并于1996年获正式提名诺贝尔文学奖。托马斯终身在威尔士偏远的乡村教堂当牧师，自觉以自然和乡村的宁静、质朴来对抗现代世界的喧嚣与虚华。他的诗跟他本人一样，严谨拙朴，冷峻肃穆，厚重深刻。