T. H. Jones
Last February, the poet T. H. Jones died in Australia. Although he had published three volumes of poetry, mostly on Welsh themes, and criticism of Dylan Thomas, we in Wales knew very little about him. The Editor would be pleased to publish any account of his life or work in the next number of this magazine. Meanwhile, here is a transcript of a tribute that was broadcast by Professor Gwyn Jones on the Welsh B.B.C.
I was very shocked indeed to hear about the death of T. H. Jones, shocked because it was such a surprise, because I knew him well and liked him very much. As always in these matters, there’s this strong sense of loss because he was a fine young man and a fine young poet.
I knew him quite a long time ago. He was in the navy during the war. I think he put in six or seven years there. Then he came to college at Aberystwyth where he was a student in my department and certainly a very able one. He took a first and a very good M.A. afterwards. But the thing I remember about him there was that he wrote a one-act play for my society. A lot of students had written one-act plays but he had a most distinguished leading lady, it was Rachel Roberts. So even at that time Harry Jones had the gift of getting things done. After he left college, he became a teacher for a time and then he went to Australia and was a university lecturer there.
I’ve said he was a good poet and certainly he was. Technically, he was very accomplished. He knew what he was about. He had a real command of words and metre. I like to think of the two things that he wrote about so often. He was passionately devoted to Wales, this mountain, that valley, this old man, that young girl, people, places, he loved them all and he had a great compassion for his fellow countrymen. He also wrote a lot about his family. There were those three small daughters, I think a son, his wife whom he so obviously loved so very very much and about whom one must think at a time like this. He was such a hatchet-headed kind of South Wales collier type.
We will never see him again, never hear him talk and, in respect of a poet, for those of us who were not in his closest family circle, perhaps the saddest thing of all, we shall never read any more of his poetry.
Page(s) 16
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The