Too brave to dream: encounters with modern art

When R.S. Thomas died in 2000, two seminal studies of modern art were found on his bookshelves - Herbert Read's 'Art Now' (1933) and 'Surrealism' (1936), edited by Read and containing essays by key figures in the Surrealist movement.

Some three dozen previously unknown poems handwritten by Thomas were then discovered between the pages of the two books, poems written in response to a selection of the many reproductions of modern art in the Read volumes, including works by Henry Moore, Edvard Munch, George Grosz, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte and Graham Sutherland - many of whom were Thomas's near contemporaries.

These poems are published here for the first time - alongside the works of modern art that inspired them.