Adlestrop

Description

Although, like many other brilliant English poets of his time, Edward Thomas (1878 – 1917) had his life and career shortened by the outbreak of WWI, his resolve and talent as both a nature writer and a poet shone through without reservation.

After running into a period of financial difficulty, Thomas was forced to work harder in his career as a reviewer of poetry, and his work in literary criticism took precedence over his poetry. In 1913, however, he met acclaimed poet Robert Frost, who had inspired him to write more and heighten his intensity for creating new and inspired nature poems. Adlestrop is one of these brilliant gems, a 16-line poem written about an unusual and unexpected happening, when a train suddenly made an unscheduled stop at Adlestrop, Gloucestershire.

The brilliant thing about this poem and the event it presents is that nothing “eventful” actually happens. The scene itself, however, is the poem’s center focus. A brilliant keeper of nature journals, Edward Thomas managed to capture all the poetic and artistic details of the scene as the train stopped, and the peaceful scenery around it took center stage.

In the poem he writes about seemingly common elements of the flora and fauna that he observed during his visit to Adlestrop, and manages to turn what most would consider a trivial setting into a magical nature scene that still pleases and inspires his readers today.

Written only a year after his revitalizing encounter with Robert Frost, Adlestrop is a testament to the renewal and remarkable transformation that Thomas had undergone both as a poet and as a man. Although he would only have another three years to live, he accomplished a great deal more through his creative writing, and managed to remain in the collective memory of British literature as not only a renowned literary critic, but also a skilled and talented poet who was not afraid to live life to its fullest.
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