R.S. Thomas: Quotes about imagination

“Any form of orthodoxy is just not part of a poet's province … A poet must be able to claim … freedom to follow the vision of poetry, the imaginative vision of poetry … And in any case, poetry is religion, religion is poetry.”

R.S. Thomas

R. S. Thomas : Priest and Poet, BBC TV (2 April 1972)
Context: Any form of orthodoxy is just not part of a poet's province … A poet must be able to claim … freedom to follow the vision of poetry, the imaginative vision of poetry … And in any case, poetry is religion, religion is poetry. The message of the New Testament is poetry. Christ was a poet, the New Testament is metaphor, the Resurrection is a metaphor; and I feel perfectly within my rights in approaching my whole vocation as priest and preacher as one who is to present poetry; and when I preach poetry I am preaching Christianity, and when one discusses Christianity one is discussing poetry in its imaginative aspects. … My work as a poet has to deal with the presentation of imaginative truth.

Religion , Imagination , Freedom , Parting

“You have to imagine
a waiting that is not impatient
because it is timeless.”

R.S. Thomas book The Echoes Return Slow

Source: "The Echoes Return Slow" in The Echoes Return Slow (1988)

Imagination , Waiting

“Blessings, Stevens;
I stand with my back to grammar
At an altar you never aspired
to, celebrating the sacrament
of the imagination whose high-priest
notwithstanding you are.”

R.S. Thomas

"Homage to Wallace Stevens"
No Truce with the Furies (1995)

Imagination

“Imaginative truth is the most immediate way of presenting ultimate reality to a human being … ultimate reality is what we call God.”

R.S. Thomas

R. S. Thomas : Priest and Poet, BBC TV (2 April 1972)