« We feel that we are in contact not simply with the man's mind or his fancy, or his eyes, or his book of synonyms but with a man, the writing gives us the sense of the actual bodily presence of a man. » How far does this review from Thomas about another poet actually correspond to what he himself was doing with poetry?

A poet can make the reader feel different ways or different things. After all, writing tries to make a reader react a certain way. To do this, they use different vocabulary or find ways to insist on particular words to emphasize them. Edward Thomas, having been a poetry critic for quite some years has seen how they do such things and has known how to make conclusions from it about the quality of writer : a good poet can subtly arouse emotions. From his knowledge of poetry acquired before starting himself, he knew how to write pleasant yet meaningful poetry. Thomas once said of another poet that “the writing gives us the sense of the actual bodily presence of man” and we shall discuss whether we can say the same for Thomas himself.

If we look at the themes of poetry that Edward Thomas deals with, we can disagree that this statement can be applied to Thomas' poetry. Thomas loved very much nature, and was much more interested in the countryside and its secrets than in people. It is in all of his poems, whatever the main theme is (if it is not nature) and he is concerned by the industrialisation destroying the abundant English nature he loves so much. The Nature that Thomas describes is often untouched by man or at least free of its presence. For example in 'Adelstrop', he sees a “bare platform” and enumerates an abundant Nature in which only “haycocks” can suggest mans passage. This absence, rather than felt presence, is also in 'The Unknown Bird' in which he is the only one able to hear the bird and also by the “bodiless sweet” presence of the bird.
Furthermore, when Thomas writes about the war in his poems, there is more a sense of absence