Counterpoint

by R.S. Thomas

Dufour Editions, an independent publisher and distributor for more than forty years, has an established reputation as a fine literary house. International poetry has always been outstanding in the list, which initially began with some of Thomas Kinsella's and John Montague's first books from the prestigious Dolmen Press.Since those early days, the complete poetry list has grown to include prize-winning poets from twenty-nine countries. Many of the poets have toured and been interviewed in the U.S. Some are Nobel Prize winners. This catalog introduces some highly regarded poets from publishers whose lists are being distributed in the U.S. and Canada for the first time.The rewards in publishing poetry are sometimes sublime, as opposed to commercial, but reader response over the years has justified our commitment. The strength of the list is evidenced on this page, on which we salute recent prize-winners whose books are currently being read throughout the world.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1990

About the author

Ronald Stuart Thomas (1913-2000) (otherwise stylised as R.S. Thomas) was a Welsh poet and Anglican priest who was noted for his nationalism, spirituality and deep dislike of the anglicisation of Wales.

Reviews

[zb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning, simply stunning. Read everything R.S. Thomas has written: that’s the review.

To be alive then
was to be aware how necessary
prayer was and impossible.

The philosophers had done
their work well, demolishing
proofs we never believed in.

We were drifting in space-
time, in touch with what we had
left and could not return to.

We rehearsed the excuses
for the deficiencies of love’s
kingdom, avoiding our eyebeams.

Beset, as we were,
with science’s signposts, we whimpered
to no purpose that we were lost.

We are here still. What
is survival’s relationship
with meaning? The answer once

was the bone’s music at the lips
of time. We are incinerating
them both now in the mind’s crematorium.

——///——

‘The body is mine and the soul is mine’
says the machine. ‘I am at the dark source
where the good is indistinguishable
from evil. I fill my tanks up
and there is war. I empty them
and there is not peace. I am the sound,
not of the world breathing, but
of the catch rather in the world’s breath.’

Is there a contraceptive
for the machine, that we may enjoy
intercourse with it without being overrun
by vocabulary? We go up
into the temple of ourselves
and give thanks that we are not
as the machine is. But it waits
for us outside, knowing that when
we emerge it is into the noise
of its hand beating on the breast’s
iron as Pharisaically as ourselves.

——///——

But the silence in the mind
is when we live best, within
listening distance of the silence
we call God. This is the deep
calling to deep of the psalm-
writer, the bottomless ocean
we launch the armada of
our thoughts on, never arriving.

It is a presence, then,
whose margins are our margins;
that calls us out over our
own fathoms. What to do
but draw a little nearer to
such ubiquity by remaining still?

——///——

I think that maybe
I will be a little surer
of being a little nearer.
That’s all. Eternity
is in the understanding
that that little is more than enough.

[Timothy Hoiland · Rating 3 out of 5]

“When we are weak, we are
strong. When our eyes close
on the world, then somewhere
within us the bush

burns. When we are poor
and aware of the inadequacy
of our table, it is to that
uninvited the guest comes.”