The Frank Skinner Show - Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast: RS Thomas

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Frank shares a pulpit with RS Thomas. The poems referenced are ‘Border Blues’, ‘Service’ and ‘Poetry For Supper’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and welcome to a brand new series of Frank Skinner's poetry podcast. I was doing a standup comedy gig at the Aberystwyth Festival, which I was very excited to do for many reasons, but one of them being that Aberystwyth is quite close to, and this pronunciation will almost certainly be wrong, forgive me Welsh listeners, a place called Egwys Fack which I believe literally means small church and I really wanted to go to Egwys Fack because a poet who I really like, RS Thomas, I'll give you the dates, born 1913, died 2000 aged 87. He was the vicar at the

local church in Egwys Fax. So I wanted to visit that church. One particular reason I had for visiting there is I knew that RS Thomas and his wife had given the church something of a makeover when he was the vicar there and they have retained the RS Thomas sheik. Basically he scraped or he or his wife and or his wife scraped the varnish from the pews, painted the matte black, painted the whole church black, the pulpit black, took out the fancy chandeliers, got new wrought iron crosses and chandeliers in a very gothic style, took almost all of the plaques off the wall and made it a sort of a black box, this church. This was, by the way, without any permission from the Anglican

authorities. R.S. Thomas just decided this was a good thing to do. His wife was an artist. She liked it better black, so that's what they went for. And like I say, it still looks the same. It's really worth a visit. And to my delight, there was a cassock on a mannequin, these long black gowns that clergymen wear. And it said, and I wrote wrote this down so I'll quote it exactly, cassock worn by Reverend RS Thomas when he was vicar of Egwysfack

1954 to 1967. There was even a slightly grobby handkerchief still in the pocket which also delighted me. So I met a lot of the locals, they came along to see me at the church. I think they were quite pleased that I liked RS Thomas. And I even read from the pulpit a couple of RS Thomas poems, yes, I know. But it was interesting because he wasn't always that popular when he was the vicar there, because he was quite a difficult man, I think, in lots of ways. In fact, I'll read you a bit from a poem. I'm a West Midlands man who grew up in the Birmingham area, so I'd like to read you a bit from RS Thomas's poem,

Border Blues, just as a ramp till we talk about a full poem. And he was very Welsh, I suppose, is what you would call RS Thomas, although he wrote poetry in English. And I think that sort of tension that he spoke like a posh Englishman but spiritually was deeply, deeply Welsh, that was a constant conflict in him. He was sort of aggressively Welsh and he didn't learn Welsh until he was

the Welsh language, until he was in his 30s. He said a great thing about when he didn't learn Welsh until he was the Welsh language, until he was in his 30s. He said a great thing about when he couldn't speak Welsh. He said, and this is a quote from RS Thomas of the Welsh language, all those words and me outside them, which I really liked. So in this extract from the poem, just going to read now just a little bit, And this extract from the poem, just going to read now just a little bit. He is wandering down the road in Wales with a seventh century Welsh saint called, again with apologies for my pronunciation, Bueno. Now obviously he isn't literally with a seventh century Welsh saint, but that's clearly what's

in his mind, what he's thinking about, he's sort of engrossed in that, and then he's confronted by what one might call the modern world, specifically the modern world as represented by the West Midlands of England. So here he goes, I was going up the road and Bueno beside me talking in Latin and Old Welsh. So he's imagining this seventh century saint speaking in these ancient languages. When a volley of voices struck us, I turned but Bueno had vanished. So whatever the speaker had heard, it sent the seventh century saint away.

And in his place there stood the ladies from the council houses, blue eyes and Birmingham yellow hair and the ritual murder of vows. I know it's funny, but he was a terrible snob, RS Thomas. There's no getting around it. In fact, when he was the vicar of Egwys Fac, one of the things he said, which is a funny quote but it's still quite elitist, my predecessor here hadn't got a brain. Everyone loved him. So yes, he struggled as the vicar of Egwis Fac and the locals, I think, generally speaking, weren't at all sure about him. So one of the poems I read in

the pulpit that day is a poem called Service, which R.S. Thomas wrote in 1966 when he was still the vicar at Egwys Fack. So it, I think, gives you an insight into how tough he found the job and how frustrating he found the locals. And although he was very proud of his Welshness, he sometimes found it hard to love the Welsh, if you like. The poem's called Service, as I said, which I think refers to a religious service. The poem is about a vicar conducting a service. It may be RS Thomas, it may be a form of him, as we always say.

But also I think service as in the fact that he serves the hard work and graft that he puts in to the job. Here's the first few lines. And bear in mind, can I just give you the first sentence of this? The first sentence goes over a line and a half. There's a lot of enjambment in this poem, which you may recall enjambment is when a sentence runs across more than one line. I think RS Thomas uses it a lot in poetry when he's trying to almost unpoeticise the poem. I think because he's talking about an unsatisfactory and unrewarding

religious service that he or the speaker conducted, then he doesn't want it to sound too poetic and lovely. He wants it to sound like prose, I suppose, to some extent, because he feels little poetry in it. There's no real glory in it. And if you think a vicar stands at the front of a church and he is sharing this wondrous story, this wondrous experience, this wondrous faith. That's the whole point of the vicar thing. The first line is, we stand looking at each other. It's, oh God, it's so grim, isn't it? So that's him and the congregation, okay. We stand looking at each other. I take the word prayer and present it to them. I wait idly, wondering what their lips will make of it.

But they hand back such presence. I am left alone with no echoes to the amen I dreamed of. That's the beginning of the service. It begins with this prayer. We stand looking at each other. So there's that moment, it's almost like a fight is about to commence. I take the word prayer and present it to them. He doesn't even say, I'm asking them

to share this prayer with me. I take the word prayer, it really is now being broken down to its fundamentals, this event. I take the word prayer and present it to them. I wait idly. This is a man who's been a vicar for some time and he doesn't present the word prayer to them with tremendous optimism, it sounds, but he hands it over and it feels very transactional, doesn't it? I take the word prayer and present it to them.

I wait idly, wondering what their lips will make of it." It's also become a physical response. He doesn't wonder what their hearts or their minds will think will make of it. It's their lips. So are they even going to say it with any kind of volume or gusto? That's the most he can hope for is some sort of response that sounds like they care at all. But they hand back such presence. So he's given them this gift of a prayer, this special, special way to start the service. They share a prayer together, but they hand back such presence that they're not that interested. I am left alone with no echoes to the amen I dreamed of."

And I say all this is deliberately, it seems to me, breaking up the sentences so they form more than one line. So you never get a chance to hit a poetic rhythm, even though there's no rhymes. He seems to be making it prose-like because he feels this event is prose-like rather than poetic. Next bit. So they've finished the prayer, the hymns begin. I am saved by music from the emptiness of this place of despair.

As the melody rises from nothing, their mouths take up the tune and the roof listens so I am saved by music the organ kicks in presumably and there's something some beauty suddenly music I'm saved by music thank goodness for that saved from the emptiness of this place end of line so you feel a sort of physical emptiness because these people aren't really present but then it goes on to the next line that sentence of despair so I am saved by music line break from the emptiness of this place line break of despair but that as a sentence the music kicks in and it gives

him something it saves him from the emptiness of this place of despair so not just this physical place which which that line break suggests, the emptiness of this place, but the emptiness of this place of despair. So not just the bleakness of the physical situation he sees before him, but in his heart, that emptiness, the emptiness of this place of despair. As the melody rises from nothing, their mouths take up the tune.

Now listen to this, the melody rises, again it's the tune, their mouths take up the tune. And again in a way that their lips were dealing with the prayer, now it's their mouths that are dealing with the hymn. There's no inner involvement for the congregation as he sees it. Their lips operate the prayer, their mouths operate the hymns, but there's nothing coming from inside them. As the melody rises from nothing, so there's no fervour, it's just started, the music has started clinically. Their mouths take up the tune and it seems to be the tune rather than

the words, the sentiment, the meaning of these hymns. And the roof listens. An inanimate part of the church is like they're not even listening to each other singing these hymns. Summer is what you make of it, and Tim Horton's fruit quenchers have something for every mood. So choose from a variety of fruity flavors in sparkling, frozen, or lemonade. Order yours on the Tim's app today at participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. On August 1st. May I speak freely?

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Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so that's the hymns over, no, it's the sermon. I call on God in the after silence so this is the silence after the hymn I call on God in the after silence and my shadow wrestles with him upon a wall of plaster that has all the nation's hardness in it. They see me thrown without movement of their oblique eyes.' So the sermon, now you can imagine if the prayer which is written down and which everyone gets to read together hasn't gone well, if the hymn where they have the words in front

of them, someone is helping them with the organ, if that hasn't gone well, if that hasn't found any fervour in them, either of those things, the prayer or the hymns, what chance has his sermon got? I call on God in the after silence and my shadow wrestles with him upon a wall of plaster that has all the nation's hardness in it. Now there is a story some of you will know in Genesis the first book of the Old Testament in which Jacob who is the sort of becomes the father of Israel well well his name becomes Israel, he's so synonymous with creating the nation.

Jacob wrestles with this figure. He's out on his own in the wilderness and he ends up wrestling with this guy. Now there's some debate, is it an angel, is it God? But it seems to be God. He's wrestling with God. And there's all sorts of, as you can imagine, interpretations of this. But in this poem, I call on God in the after silence and my shadow wrestles with him upon a wall of plaster.

That's fantastic, isn't it? Because he is wrestling with God. His spirit, his faith is being so battered down by this lifeless congregation, these people who don't seem to care about all this effort, all this service he's giving them at this service. It looks like he's wrestling with God and you can see in a sort of shadow play upon the wall of plaster that has all the nation's hardness in it. Even when he's doing this beautiful image of him wrestling with God, as he is wrestling in the sermon, wrestling with concepts and ideas and wrestling with ways

of bringing some fervour to this crowd, you can actually physically see, obviously not literally, but my shadow wrestles with him upon a wall of plastan. I just think that's stunning. He is wrestling with the whole job of being a vicar, with the whole frustration and deadness of it. And you can see him wrestling with God in a shadow play on the plastered wall at the side. They see me thrown without movement of their oblique eyes. So it sounds like he's losing this wrestling match with them, with faith, with God. I mean, he did seem, his faith did seem to somewhat diminish. It was sort of beaten out of him.

In a later poem called Balance, I'll just give you a very quick excerpt. Again, I think he's lots of enjambment trying to make this sound as prose, like the poetry has gone from his belief. I have abandoned my theories, the easier certainties of belief. There are no handrails to grasp. So it sounds like his faith is all but lost by the end. And it certainly sounds like he's struggling, wrestling with it here. They see me thrown without movement of their oblique eyes.

So they seem thrown in the wrestling match, but of course they don't literally, I suppose they hear him wrestling with God in this sermon. They see me thrown without movement of their oblique eyes. So they're actually their oblique eyes, they're avoiding his gaze during the sermon. They're not looking at him. So what started pretty bleakly this poem, we stand looking at each other by the end, has diminished even further. They're not even looking at him now. They see me thrown without movement of their oblique eyes. So they know it's happening. That's how they see him. They see him just by an awareness of his presence but they don't actually want to

look him in the eye directly with their oblique eyes, avoiding his gaze, avoiding the struggle that he's going through, but being aware that he's having a hard time, and I think the suggestion is not caring very much. So I read that to the locals of Egwis Fack, and they seem to take it pretty well. Obviously some of them would have been the descendants I guess of that indifferent congregation. I love the poem, I love its suppressed rage and frustration and I think it's great to hear the vicar's point of view of just battering his head Against this indifferent people Okay, I want to do one more RS Tom

I actually made a decision that I was just gonna do one poem per podcast in this series, but you know rules This I just love this one so much. This is actually an earlier poem 1958. It was still at Egwist fact though It had been there, I guess four years when this was published. It's called Poetry for Soppa and I'm reading it because it's a poetry podcast and it's a fantastic poem about poetry and some of you'll have noticed I like poems about poetry. I've never quite worked out why. So this Poetry for Soppa is two guys in a pub arguing. And it sounds quite real, but it also sounds very poetic, much more poetic than Service,

the last poem I read. And as I said, sometimes he seems to deliberately take the poetry out of a poem, but here he wants it and you'll see why as this unfolds. So it's two guys, two old guys arguing in a pub. And poetry for supper, I think, because it's in a pub it's at night so supper time but also I think a suggestion there that poetry is sustaining you could have it for supper it's a food it gives you strength if you like and each stanza is a different guy talking. So guy number one has a stanza, guy number two has a stanza, guy number one has a comeback, guy number two has a comeback

and so on. Okay. I'm going to read you the first couple of stanzas. So you'll hear from both speakers in this debate, this pub debate, and it begins, we sort of arrive mid-debate, they've already been at it, it feels like. Listen now, verse should be as natural as the small tuber that feeds on muck and grows slowly from obtuse soil to the white flower of immortal beauty. Next answer. Natural hell. What was it Chaucer said once about the long toil that goes like blood to the poem's making? Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls, limp as bindweed, if it break at all life's iron crust. Man, you must sweat and rhyme your

guts taut if you'd build your verse a ladder. So, those are the two different views. Basically one is that poetry should just flow. It should be a natural inspired thing and the other view that poetry should be hard work, crafted, something that you have to make happen. So let's listen to the first guy. Listen now. Verse should be as natural as the small tuber that feeds on muck. Now again, there is enjambment in this poem, most certainly, but they do seem to operate more like poetic lines. Listen now. verse should be as natural as the small tuber that feeds on muck and grows slowly from obtuse soil to the white flower of immortal beauty and if you just take the end words natural muck soil and then finally beauty you're really getting the sense of what this

and then finally beauty. You're really getting the sense of what this person believes. First should be as natural as the small tuber, that sort of root that feeds on muck, because you put manure on it, and grows slowly from obtuse soil. So soil that doesn't care, dumb soil, there's no help, there's no influence, this thing is just happening. And it grows to the white flower of immortal beauty. It's from the soil, that's how natural it is. And the only thing that helps it to come to life is muck. I suggest that means the realities, the grim realities of life. And yet it grows from all that soil muck, all that dirt, it grows to the white flower of immortal beauty. I said this sounds sort of realistic. We find out later in the poem, I probably shouldn't do this, that this is two poets

arguing, two old poets. So although it feels quite, I don't know, not like a real conversation in a pub, people don't normally talk about things that grow slowly from obtuse soil to the white flower of immortal beauty. But you could believe that two poets might talk like that. So he's got those normal speech things like listen now. And in this next one, when the other poet kicks in,

natural hell. So it's got that, but it's also, it is poetic because these guys have got poetic minds. Okay, let's listen to the response to this idea that poetry should just be left to grow. Natural hell. What was it Chaucer said once about the long toile that goes like blood to the poem's making? So he's quoting Chaucer now and I'm getting excited because we'll find out they're in a pub. And of course Chaucer sets a lot of the Canterbury Tales in a pub. So it kind of makes it real. Chaucer cared about representing real life. So this guy is now quoting Chaucer.

He's saying, I believe that poetry needs real effort and thought. And so he's saying, I don't just let it happen. Like I've read other poets I acknowledge that I'm part of this this craft natural hell what was it Chaucer said once about the living toil now that interesting use of toil because in the last stanza the man who said we should just let poetry flow, I presume it's a man. I know it's an old poet.

I'm happy for it to be a woman. And grow slowly from obtuse soil, he said. And now what was it Chaucer said once about the long toil? It's as if the second poet, the craftsman poet, rather than the natural poet, the craftsman poet is making the natural poet's words rhyme. He is bringing in toil to rhyme with the previous poet's soil. It's like he's making it feel more crafted and more made and more designed and not just growing naturally like the first poet wanted it to be. Natural hell, what was it Chaucer said once about the long toil that goes like blood to the poem's making? And again the use of toil and making very different from like natural mock and soil. This is someone working at poetry.

So Chaucer, it seems, I'm not familiar with this quote, but I'm assuming that it's true. Chaucer said that poetry is basically, you're going to need some blood. It's hard work. It's hard work. Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls limp as vineweed if it break at all life's iron crust. So you can hear another neorhyme in that sprawls and all so he's making this clearly something that's been built even though it's in conversation. Leave it to nature, which is what the first poet suggests we do. So leave it to nature and the verse sprawls, limp as bindweed, if it break at all life's iron crust. So if you just leave it to nature you'll get this sprawling, meandering, unstructured

poem like Bindweed, as limp as Bindweed. I don't know if you're familiar with Bindweed. It's a sort of, I suppose you call it a sort of ground vine. We've got a bit in our garden, in fact. It just lies flat on the surface, as he says, if it break at all life's iron crust. I mean, it comes out of the earth, but it does look limp and sprawling. And he uses that. He takes the first poet's sort of gardening imagery of the small tuber that feeds on muck and grows slowly into a poem

and he says if you leave it to nature you'll more likely get bindweed, limp, sprawling, hardly breaking life's iron crust, hardly achieving, hardly saying anything worthwhile. Man you must sweat and rhyme your God's taught if you'd build your verse a ladder. So you have to as before we've had toil we've had making and now we've got sweat you have to rhyme your God's taught you've got to work at it to make a poem as he says if you'd build your verse a ladder. Now the first guy compares poetry to a white flower of immortal beauty.

The second guy, the practical guy if you like, describes it as being like a ladder. It's going to raise you up. It's going to lift you higher this thing but you have to build it. It has to be crafted. It has to be solid. It has to be dependable. It has to take your weight. So poetry is ladder rather than poetry is white flower of immortal beauty. So now the sort of more romantic poet comes back, actually completing the line of the previous poet. They're on the same page, these guys, I think that's what that is saying. Yes, they're saying different things, but your versalada is half a line, you speakers

though is the other poet completing that line. So they are aligned even if they argue. And I wonder if there's a sense of internal debate about this. Maybe every poet has this debate. Should I be inspired, should I let it happen or should I sit in my room and sweat and make these poems come? So the the romantic poet we'll call we'll call him that, the first one we heard speak. You speak as though no sunlight ever surprised the mind groping on its cloudy path. So you're talking as if it's just hard work but this idea of sunlight surprising the mind groping on its cloudy path so you're

really you don't know where you're going with this poem you don't know what you are saying and then suddenly this beam of inspiration comes and you're looking as though that that never happens. You speak as though no sunlight ever surprised the mind groping on its cloudy path. Inspiration that's what he's celebrating. Then the practical poem the Ladder Guy comes back again. Sunlight is a thing that needs a window before it enter a dark room. Windows don't happen. In other words you have to force that inspiration. If you want that beam of light to come in you've got to make a window just like you had to make a ladder to raise your reader upward.

It requires effort. You have to really make it be. Okay, and then the last closing bit. So two old poets hunched their beer in the low haze of an inn parlor, while the taut ran noisily by them to lib with prose." And it's fantastic, these two old poets, hunched at their beer. I mean, you can see them, can't you? Hunched over their beer in the low haze of an inn parlor. And I think that's tobacco. Some of you may be too young to remember when there was basically a low lying cloud

of tobacco in every pub. So two old poets hunched at their beer in the low haze of an inn parlor. The parlor, it comes from the French word to parlay, to speak, to conversation. And that was, there was several rooms in a pub. There was the smote room and the snog and the bar, which is when pubs were, when pubs were pubs.

And you would go into the parlor, the main thing was in a more modern day, there was no jukeboxes in there. You went into talk, talk, talk, and that's what these guys are doing. So two old poets hunched at their beer in the low haze of an inn parlor, while the talk ran noisily by them, glib with prose. So the rest of the people in that room, their talk is just running by these poets, they're not interested. And their talk is glib with prose. And again R.S. Thomas is using this comparison of poetry and prose.

He only found prose in that religious surface because the congregation seemed to sock the poetry out of it. Whereas here, in a world of conversation that is glib with prose, sort of superficial with prose, here these two old poets are bringing poetry and they're bringing passion and they're bringing that fervour that was missing from the church service. I love, love this poem. I love both poems. Read RS Thomas. You get like a fat collected poems with like of RS Thomas with like, you know, 300 pages. It's amazing his hit rate. So many, so many, so many really brilliant poems. Give him a go.

So thank you for listening to Frank Skinner's poetry podcast. Don't forget to follow so you never miss an episode. Imagine that. See you next week.