How could I not realize that the several articles on Dylan Thomas that appeared over the last few days weren’t just a coincidence? In fact, they weren’t: had he lived, Thomas would be 100 years old today (and the day is already over in Wales).
As it is, Thomas made it only to the age of 39, having drunk himself to death in New York City. What a waste, but can one suppose that alcohol fueled his creativity? Regardless, he’s one of my favorite poets, and I even stayed in the village of Laugharne in Wales just to see his house and the tiny shack where he wrote some of his best poems (see this post for some of my holiday snaps about Thomas).
This was a man who could make words sing, and if you don’t believe me, read “Fern Hill,” or “A refusal to mourn the death, by fire, of a child in London,” or “After the funeral (in memory of Ann Jones,” or “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.” Or his wonderful play for voices, “Under Milk Wood.”
Yes, I know that some academics scorn him, saying that the largesse of his language hid a paucity of thought (they say the same thing of Thomas Wolfe, another favorite author of mine), but I reject such carping.
Here he lies in Laugharne, carried away by whiskey:
The inside of Thomas’s writing shed, where, among other things, he wrote “Under Milk Wood” and “Do not go gentle into that good night”:
If you don’t know Thomas, and want just one sample of his work, I’d recommend “After the funeral (in memory of Ann Jones)”, about Thomas’s aunt. You can read it here, or hear Thomas reciting it here.
Had no clue, either. Thanks for calling it to my attention!
b&
Been hard to escape on the radio here!
I actually ditched the radio quite some time ago. Mostly just listen to the silence…or, right this moment, the sausage sizzling on the stove and the water boiling in the kettle….
b&
Marvelous. I love hearing the author recite his or her own work. Thank you for sharing.
I wonder if someone has done a serious study of the link between genius and self-torture? It seems that some of the greatest minds self-destructed from personal torments. What’s the nature of that link?
Usually they are the worst people to read their own work.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01s4d2y
Take a look at Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament by Kay Redfield Jamison.
The Richard Burton cast production of “Under Milk Wood” for the BBC is phenomenal, even to this philistine barbarian. (Actually, next time I meet Attila, I’ll have to ask what his opinion of it is. Probably good.)
Have just shared this with hubby – to read and then hear the poem was transcendent, thank you. And now I know about Poemhunter.com – oh dear, and I’m supposed to spend some time in the real world……
We rational atheists inhabit such a rich world, informed by the best and brightest, our ether perfumed with muses, and ‘no hell below us’.
Beautiful thoughts, Dawn.
When I was a student at Swansea University in Wales we used to drink in the same pubs that Dylan Thomas used to drink in, but Dylan was dead by then. There were a number of pubs in an area called Mumbles not far from the university. Sit outside watching the yachts on the sea – lovely memories.
“Do Not Go Gentle” is required in every first year university English class, at least it was in mine. That poem made me feel that finally someone wrote about fighting death instead of idealizing it or speaking of the after life. I felt happy that someone else disliked the idea of death, like me, and sad that if others realized the finality of death, as I did, then it probably was really the end and heaven wasn’t something I could be happily wrong about.
Whoops sub
I first knew the poem from the Jeannie Lewis song on ‘Free Fall through Featherless Flight’, which my elder brother played constantly in the mid to late 70s. That track doesn’t seem to be on YouTube, but was an adaptation of this version in the movie ‘Stone’.
Every outdoor scene in that movie is set within a few miles (as they were then) of where I grew up, and shows the streets and buildings as they were when I first walked and cycled around Sydney in the early 70s (e.g. in the song clip, the bikers come south down the Pacific Highway at St Leonards, passing on their left the ABC broadcasting centre, then on the right the medical centre where I used to go for eye tests, and turn left through the gate into the big cemetery that was later built over by Royal North Shore Hospital).
Re: How could I not realize that the several articles on Dylan Thomas that appeared over the last few days weren’t just a coincidence? In fact, they weren’t: had he lived, Thomas would be 100 years old today (and the day is already over in Wales).”
It took me much longer than it should have to realize that the reason two of the eight local summer Shakespeare Festivals in the greater SF Bay Area and a local high school all did stage adaptations of Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” this year (3 different scripts by different playwrights) was that this is the 200th anniversary of its publication.
I hadn’t noticed any Dylan Thomas stuff on my internets. Thanks for pointing this out. In highschool my two favorite poets were Dylan Thomas and Thomas Patchen. Nostalgia!
Whoops. Make that Kenneth Patchen. Ha! It’s been a while.
Sub
I swear that cross in the photo looks like it says 1904. All records online say 1914, but did they make an error on his marker??
It does look like 1904 or a really fat 1.
This website is like a prism. Hold it up to the light, and you see an unexpected colour.
As for DT, well, I like his well-known “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower”. Great stuff!
Oh the untalented alway find some great poets to poo-poo, so I never listen to any critics. Besides, poetry is a matter of taste.
From the photo, do I reasonably gather that his writing shed remains as he left it?
Yes, I think so. One is not allowed inside, so I took the photo through the glass.
It’s interesting that Dylan Thomas had a “shed”.
The RACV (Royal Automobile Club of Victoria) has a page of their monthly magazine devoted to someone’s “shed”.
Last month it did my friend’s shed. He has an avid interest in aeroplanes and actually bought one and, to the consternation of his neighbours, had it put in his back yard. That is his “shed”.
I also have a shed.
It’s full of junk.
This guy has<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLjS3gzHetA" two sheds!
I just knew that’s what you were going to post, Diana:-))
🙂
No, he hasn’t!
…but he was a trainspotter…can’t take that away from him….
b&
It’s also the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jonas Salk, who is honored with today’s Google Doodle.
No death for now. Haven’t lived enough, or, haven’t lived. 🙂
Like everyone else, I really enjoy DT’s muscular language – but none the less I do find it a tad off-putting to hear him speak in that awful elocuted voice that he had. His words SO clamour for the Welsh accent…
“…limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.”
And Llareggub = Buggerall, which was Under Milk Wood’s original title.
He really was out of time. Too bright for his time. One of those predatory humans capable of torturing any subject until it bleed something that the rest of us knew instantly, but could never uncover.
As a local I feel I should have some comment – but not really. Saw `a poet in New york` on last night
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01w6llk)
My daughter once worked at the boathouse so has been inside the shed!
Brian
Llanfihangel-ar-arth
“A Poet in New York” is excellent, highly recommended. If you can find some way of faking a UK IP address Jerry, you’d enjoy it.
One of my literature professors had done her doctoral dissertation on Dylan Thomass. That being the case I was, of course, introduced to his work, and became a fan.
But, I didn’t get along with the professor very well. She also thought highly of, and required of me a term paper on, The Postman Always Rings Twice by James Cain. For me American Literature doesn’t get any more boring, or less impressive than that.
At least you didn’t take Canadian Literature and endure Susanna Moodie’s Roughing it in the Bush. After the obvious double entendre jokes, you are just left with tears because it’s so tedious.
Ha!. Tedious is the perfect word for TPART.
I have no idea what that book (Roughing it in the Bush) is about, but the title should get the award for lingering the longest in one’s mind. Too hysterical.
Not sure if you remember or are even aware of Rodney dangerfield in the movie back to school where he recites thomas. Unfortunately that is the only reason I am aware of him.
Rodney Dangerfield Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle …: http://youtu.be/mTv1Dmu5CYc