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Edward Thomas - centenary year of death
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tjj
tjj
3606 posts

Edited Apr 07, 2017, 18:00
Re: Edward Thomas, centenary of death 9 April 1917
Apr 06, 2017, 23:46
Evergreen Dazed wrote:
thesweetcheat wrote:
What lovely writing, I declare complete ignorance of him up until now.


I've got the faber book of selected poems, I think you might like it. My wife bought me 'The Icknield Way' which is competing with Gunns 'Atom of Delight' for next read.


Hope no one minds me bumping this up.

ED, I remembered you saying you had 'The Icknield Way' and as it is now coming up the centenary anniversary of Edward Thomas's death at the Battle of Arras, 9th April 1917 I've been trying to find a fitting piece of prose from it to commemorate the date. There is a lot of work out there to choose from, unfortunately much of it not available online. However, I did find this book blog which talks honestly about The Icknield Way whilst refraining to eulogise about the work or Thomas.
https://emilybooks.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/the-icknield-way/
Edit: The link doesn't seem to work, so here's a small extract:
"Though I’d like to, I can’t quote the whole passage here, as it goes on for a few pages. It is such a troubling passage, a nihilistic meditation on not being part of nature, on surrendering everything to the dark rain. These pages will stay with me as indeed they stayed with Thomas, for he returned to them in his poem ‘Rain’:
"Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me ...."


Can't help but feel empathy with Thomas who became a parent at the young age of 22. Early on, wrote mainly to make a living and support his family, suffered from severe depression, loved nature and solitude, died at the age of 39 in WWI - where he didn't have to be (he volunteered). He also befriended and helped the 'tramp' poet W.H.Davies, who wrote this simple but sincere little poem on learning of Thomas's death.

Killed in action
(EDWARD THOMAS)
Happy the man whose home is still
In Nature's green and peaceful ways;
To wake and hear the birds so loud,
That scream for joy to see the sun
Is shouldering past a sullen cloud.

And we have known those days, when we
Would wait to hear the cuckoo first;
When you and I, with thoughtful mind,
Would help a bird to hide her nest,
For fear of other hands less kind.

But thou, my friend, art lying dead:
War, with its hell-born childishness,
Has claimed thy life, with many more:
The man that loved this England well,
And never left it once before.

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