“Man, you must sweat
And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build
Your verse a ladder.”

— R.S. Thomas

"Poetry For Supper"
Poetry For Supper (1958)
Context: Natural, hell! What was it Chaucer
Said once about the long toil
that goes like blood to the poems making? Leave it to nature and the verse sprawls,
Limp as bindweed, if it break at all
Life's iron crust
Man, you must sweat
And rhyme your guts taut, if you'd build
Your verse a ladder.

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R.S. Thomas58

Welsh poet 1913–2000

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