In Pursuit of Edward Thomas

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects In Pursuit of Edward Thomas.

The poet Edward Thomas died at the Battle of Arras over 100 years ago on 9th April 1917.

He'd been a poet for little more than two years and his collected works amount to only a slim volume. Nevertheless he is regarded as among the greatest of English poets.

What made him so? Poet and editor, Matthew Hollis, follows a journey Thomas made by bike in the spring of 1913 from London into south west England.

It was a journey that produced a prose book for Thomas, In Pursuit of Spring, but it was also a journey that turned him towards poetry.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.

Plus Daljit reads a poem from his Poetry Extra Book of the Month: Baby Schema by Isabel Galleymore.