No Truce With the Furies

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

92 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1995

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

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won’t bullshit you. I read this because of Disco Elysium. This collection contains the famous poem Reflections. And bar none it is the best thing in this collection. It’s such a profoundly excellent and coldly sobering poem. It alone makes the whole book worth it.

So if you also came here for the same reasons, know that you’re probably all set already. In this book, you won’t find anything else quite like or quite as significant (in my opinion) as Reflections.

That said… the rest isn’t bad either. If you’re a poetry person (and also if you’re not - I’m certainly not - mostly because I’m too dumb rather than unappreciative) you should give this a shot. There’s some stuff that went over my head because it’s wordy, it’s religious (very protestant), and it’s very Welsh. But there’s some bangers too.

Stand outs for me include: Evening, No Jonahs (the one with the whales), Symbols, Two Shirts on a Line (wow!), Hallowe’en, Le Dormeur du Val, Remembering (hell yeah this one), & Vespers.

I don’t think it’s an accident that these are the shorter ones that pack a really concise punch. I think that’s when Thomas is at his best (as is also the case for Reflections). But again - maybe I’m too dumb for the longer, wordier ones.

There is this poem at the end called Anybody’s Alphabet that’s essentially a sequence of verses - each one channeling a specific letter of the alphabet. This really pops off and felt like Thomas stuntin’ on em like he was the Welsh Eminem. Putting this right at the end made me pause and think: hey yeah, some of those poems that went over my head were probably flexing some serious poetic muscle that smart poet people would really appreciate.

Overall a pretty short, humanizing read.

[zb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished my third read of No Truce with the Furies, a sublimely brilliant poetry collection by R.S. Thomas, my first since coming to faith... it's phenomenal just how many more layers there are available to me, now that my eyes and ears are open to these (significant) aspects of his work; I'd already rated this collection highly, and I'm loving it even more now - I think I'm going to try and read everything I can by him, his entire poetic corpus, over the course of the next few years. Stunning - I can see why he's regarded as one of the best poets of the 20th century.

Reflections

The furies are at home
in the mirror; it is their address.
Even the clearest water,
if deep enough can drown.

Never think to surprise them.
Your face approaching ever
so friendly is the white flag
they ignore. There is no truce

with the furies. A mirror’s temperature
is always at zero. It is ice
in the veins. Its camera
is an X-ray. It is a chalice

held out to you in
silent communion, where gaspingly
you partake of a shifting
identity never your own.

[Toby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simply astonishing volume of poetry, that is probably my favourite amongst R.S. Thomas's works. An array of emotions and themes are on display in the 80-or-so poems in the volume, from the opening despairing-yet-hopeful Geriatric (What God is proud/of this garden/of dead flowers) to the beautiful and elegiac Remembering. But as usual it's the religious poems that catch the eye and the imagination. There is less doubt in evidence here and more incomprehension, the via negative of apophatic theology. My personal favourite has always been the Indians and the Elephant, but Raptor also is striking as is Nuance:

We must not despair.
The invisible is yet susceptible
of being inferred. To pray, perhaps, is
to have a part in an infinitesimal deflection.

[Jac · Rating 4 out of 5]

No Jonahs and Runes were my favourites

[Aldo Verde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un sacco di poesie sul Natale.

[Imanol Faya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genio de la poesía anglosajona. Las furias se sienten como en casa dentro del espejo, esperan. Fue el amor quien enfrentó nuestro rostro al cristal, demandando al anónimo la pregunta: ¿Quienes somos?

[Dominic Nordenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought this because I played Disco Elysium. The game borrows more than the poem ”Reflections”.

Overall a pleasant style but many of the references flew over my head. Could be my lack in theology and welsh litterature.