Poet To Poet: Edward Thomass Letters To Walter De La Mare

This book offers still more insight into the highly influential writer and poet Edward Thomas through his correspondence with Walter de la Mare: 318 letters from between 1906 and 1917 of which only three have been previously published. They are presented in an accessible enjoyable but scholarly volume. The letters provide new and crucial evidence about Thomass poetic processes and the start of his mature poetry. They also show the mutual support the two poets enjoyed; and give new information on the closeness of the Thomas and de la Mare families. They include some beautiful natural descriptions and track Thomass progress as a reviewer and writer. The physical spacing in the letters provides evidence of often hurried and tired writing but also of a sensitivity to what is not said to pauses
to rhythm which prefigure his poems. His idiosyncratic handwriting also underlines key ideas about poetic composition and illuminates his understanding of his journey from prose writer to poet - topics of great interest to Thomas scholars. Poet to Poet offers a moving epistolary account of the developing personal and poetic relationship of both poets with biographical revelations and increased understanding of their influence on each other and key points relating to their poetic processes. The letters are arranged chronologically and are divided into three sections which illuminate Thomas and De la Mares relationship: 1906-09 The Reviewer and the Poet; 1910-13 Two Writers; 1913-17 Two Poets. Each section has a short introduction highlighting general points of interest and change in their
epistolary relationship. The book includes a transcriptors preface brief biographical information on the two poets suggestions for further reading and an index. The Introduction highlights essential points from the letters in particular revelations about both poets writing processes how Thomass criticism of De la Mares verse informs his own information on their relationship and details of de la Mares character.