 | | Young Dylan Thomas |
One of the best-known poets of the twentieth century, Dylan Thomas was
born in 1914 in Swansea, a small industrial city on the southern coast
of Wales, one of the countries of Great Britain. Thomas's father, a
school teacher, gave him the name "Dylan" after the name of a sea god
in
Celtic mythology, little knowing that the poet's eventual fame would
help make this name such a popular one today. Thomas's father also
gave
the poet an early awareness of the native Welsh traditions, as well as
the classics of English literature.
As a boy, Thomas was athletic and impressionable, and spent much of his
time outdoors. He loved visiting the beautiful seaside near Swansea
and
staying during summer vacations at a relative's farm, a scene that
inspired one of Thomas's most famous poems, "Fern Hill." The imagery
of
the Welsh countryside and coasts reappears throughout Thomas's poetry.
Thomas was a very precocious poet. His earliest recorded poem, a
humorous piece entitled, "The Song of the Mischievous Dog," was composed
when Thomas was just eleven years old. As a teenager, Thomas kept on
writing, and once claimed that he had "innumerable exercise books full
of poems." Leaving high school at sixteen, Thomas went to work as a
reporter for a local newspaper, the South Wales Evening Post. Unhappy
with this occupation, Thomas moved to London where he was finally
discovered as a poet when he won a poetry contest. But Thomas's early
poems in his notebooks were not empty exercises: in later years,
Thomas
kept returning to these poems, collecting and reworking many of them
for
inclusion in later publications.
 | | The Thomas sense of language |
Thomas's first book of poems was published in 1934 when Thomas was
twenty years old. Thomas went on to publish three more books of poetry,
as well as a final collection of his poems near the end of his life.
It
turned out that Thomas was gifted in other kinds of writing too: he
wrote short stories, some of which are collected in A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Dog; a radio play, Under Milk Wood; and various
scripts, lectures, and talks. Among these prose writings is Thomas's
story, A Child's Christmas in Wales, a beloved childhood remembrance
of
the holiday season.
After beginning his literary career in London, in 1938 Thomas moved
back
to Wales where he spent most of the remainder of his life. Here
Thomas, who had married Caitlin MacNamara in 1937, had three children.
His home in Wales was now the small seaside village of Laugharne
(pronounced "larn") on the river Towy (pronounced "toe-ee"). Thomas's
home, called the Boat House, was located right on the estuary of the
Towy, and if you visit Wales you can see this same house preserved as
it
was, including the small potting shed that Thomas used for writing his
poems. There you can look out the same window with its beautiful view
of the water and the sea birds.
 | | The Poet preparing to read |
As Thomas became more and more popular, he was invited to come to the
United States to give readings and talks. Those who attended these
recitations recall the intense voice that Thomas used for reading his
own poems, as well as reading poems by others. Some of these readings
were recorded and, if you listen to them, you will hear the song-like
quality of Thomas's voice, which some called the voice of a "wild Welsh
bard" (bard is an old word for poet). However, several years of the
reading tours began to take their toll. After a heavy bout of
drinking,
Thomas died in New York in 1953. He was only thirty-nine years old.
His body was returned to Laugharne to be buried.
Although his life was short, Thomas made a deep impression on those
who
knew him or who read his poems, or who heard them read by the poet.
Although he was born just as the modern age of literary culture was
beginning, Thomas wrote poetry which often used traditional forms of
rhythm, rhyme, and meter, and this seemed to represent a welcome
return
to an earlier and happier form of literature. Thomas was also one of
the modern writers who helped return English poetry to its roots in its
own language. Rather than choosing long words derived from foreign
languages, Thomas preferred to impress readers with strong, short words
from native English. But what Dylan Thomas will be remembered for most
of all are his many poems which insist that life will carry on from
generation to generation, all with the same vigor as before.
 | | The Dylan Thomas grave at Laughorne |
Thomas wrote one of his more famous poems, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" for his dying father:
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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