Residues

Contains poems that are paired down to response to the metaphysical questions and contradictions. The enlargement of the author's concerns is built upon the refinement of his technique. This book shows him in a winter light.

At the time of his death, Thomas (1913-2000) still stood in the shadow of fellow Welshman Dylan Thomas (1914-53). Perhaps that situation won't soon change; rounded poetry readers should nonetheless consider acquaintance with his work essential. His idiom is much less spectacular than Dylan's: no heavily sprung rhythms, no virtuosic wordplay, no dazzlingly wrenched syntax. He stands to Dylan rather as William Carlos Williams stands to Wallace Stevens. But whereas Williams is objective and material as well as plain, Thomas is subjective and spiritual. A priest in poor Church of Wales (Anglican) parishes for 50 years, he considered the ways of God repeatedly, and the poverty he worked amidst provoked a theological skepticism in him that borders on Beckett-like absurdist stoicism: "Watching" others' lives, he concludes that God watches, too, but "from behind the cross that is / the astigmatism in his vision." Weightily conscious of evil, he is abundantly grateful for life, matrimony, nature, and friendship. Even these gleanings from a file of typescripts he had marked "residues" are profoundly impressive. Ray Olson
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