R. S. Thomas: Poems to Elsi - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1781721114 ISBN 13: 9781781721117

Publisher: Seren Books

Synopsis

Celebrate the R. S Thomas centenary with this excellent volume that draws together 52 poems (2 previously unpublished) by Thomas to his wife, the distinguished artist Mildred E Eldridge - known as Elsi - from early meditations on their relationship to the elegies following her death.
This revelatory collection dramatises the changing dynamics of a complex and vitally creative relationship. Poems on marriage, cohabitation, birthdays, anniversaries, family and bereavement offer a candid portrait of emotional intimacy, desire, the painful process of ageing, and of loss. Elsi is a complex presence here: to the 'to' in the title signifies not only 'addressed to' but also 'about', 'with an eye on', 'to be overheard by', and even in one case 'from'.

About this title

About the Author

Poet, literary critic and editor. He is Reader in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University, which he joined in 1997. His first full collection, published by Seren - 'Suit of Lights' - was a Wales Literature Exchange 'Bookshelf' choice for 2010. Alabaster Girls will appear from the same press in 2012. Damian's fields of expertise include Romanticism, the interface between literature and politics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, twentieth-century poetry, and the two literatures of Wales. He has a particular interest in literary cartography, and in the ways in which poetry responds to works of art. He is General Editor of The Oxford Literary History of Wales, and was one of the three judges of the 2008 Wales Book of the Year.

Edition details

• Publisher: Seren Books
• ISBN 10: 1781721114
• ISBN 13: 9781781721117
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English