Welsh Airs could be called R.S. Thomas's book of nationalist poems. It brings together twenty-four poems from volumes long out of print such as Poetry for Supper, The Bread of Truth and Not That He Brought Flowers, and fourteen new poems previously uncollected and largely unpublished.

The poems include his most provocative and outspoken statements about the Welsh language, Wales and its culturally imperialistic neighbour, England. It has too, hard things to say of those Welshmen who have welcomed Anglicization. Welsh Airs is essential reading for anyone who would understand what Wales means to Thomas and his poetry.

R.S. Thomas (1913-2000) was one of the leading poets in post-war Britain, the foremost English language poet in Wales and the outstanding religious poet of his time. The author of over twenty collections of poetry he was nominated for the Nobel Prize.