If you restrict literary history to poets called Thomas you might suffer a
certain distortion
There's nothing wrong with Edward Thomas but you need Ivor Gurney beside him.
The answer to Dylan Thomas is W.S.Graham.
There are a lot of people you could put against RS Thomas, I'd choose Roy
Fisher.
But the only person you could get to shadow Edward Boaden Thomas is,
frankly, Wordsworth, or possibly Drayton. I knew him (EBT), he was a
lovely man, sincere, gentle, and devote to poetry. I find what he wrote
an anachronistic embarrasment.
But alas, how easy it is to point out poets' shortcomings, what a sad duty.
I'd rather work in a fish and chip shop any day.
/PR
P.S.
There's nothing working-class about dear old Lunchy, or the ethic that
inspires him.
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