The Echoes Return Slow

In The Echoes Return Slow, R.S. Thomas looks back upon his life and explores the experiences that have shaped his poetry. In parallel sequences of prose and verse, each reflecting and illuminating the other, he writes with the unflinching candour that characterizes his poetry of growing up in Wales, of marriage and parenthood, and of his own development as a poet. But at the heart of the work is his life in the church, as ‘vicar of large things in a small parish,’ striving to respond to the needs of his parishioners and being forced to examine his own faith in the face of scientific developments and changing social attitudes.