Dylan's Take on modern poetry?

[rabid reader]

A letter to my Aunt
By Dylan Thomas

To you, my aunt, who would explore
The literary Chankley Bore,
The paths are hard, for you are not
A literary Hottentot
But just a kind and cultured dame
Who knows not Eliot (to her shame).
Fie on you, aunt, that you should see
No genius in David G.,
No elemental form and sound
In T.S.E. and Ezra Pound.
Fie on you, aunt! I'll show you how
To elevate your middle brow,
And how to scale and see the sights
From modernist Parnassian heights.

First buy a hat, no Paris model
But one the Swiss wear when they yodel,
A bowler thing with one or two
Feathers to conceal the view;
And then in sandals walk the street
(All modern painters use their feet
For painting, on their canvas strips,
Their wives or mothers, minus hips).

Perhaps it would be best if you
Created something very new,
A dirty novel done in Erse
Or written backwards in Welsh verse,
Or paintings on the backs of vests,
Or Sanskrit psalms on lepers' chests.
But if this proved imposs-i-ble
Perhaps it would be just as well,
For you could then write what you please,
And modern verse is done with ease.

Do not forget that 'limpet' rhymes
With 'strumpet' in these troubled times,
And commas are the worst of crimes;
Few understand the works of Cummings,
And few James Joyce's mental slummings,
And few young Auden's coded chatter;
But then it is the few that matter.
Never be lucid, never state,
If you would be regarded great,
The simplest thought or sentiment,
(For thought, we know, is decadent);
Never omit such vital words
As belly, genitals and -----,
For these are things that play a part
(And what a part) in all good art.
Remember this: each rose is wormy,
And every lovely woman's germy;
Remember this: that love depends
On how the Gallic letter bends;
Remember, too, that life is hell
And even heaven has a smell
Of putrefying angels who
Make deadly whoopee in the blue.
These things remembered, what can stop
A poet going to the top?

A final word: before you start
The convulsions of your art,
Remove your brains, take out your heart;
Minus these curses, you can be
A genius like David G.

Take courage, aunt, and send your stuff
To Geoffrey Grigson with my luff,
And may I yet live to admire
How well your poems light the fire.


------------------


This seems to be a very jaded attack on poets of his time. He seems to think that poetry has abonnoded meaning devises and metaphors and replaced them instead with pretty rhyems. I was wondering your opinion on this. Do you take something else away from this poem? Do you agree with it? I found it funny myself and have enjoyed quoting it many times.

[mir]

i love it! though i don't think he's saying that poetry has given up meaning and metaphor for rhyme, i think he's talking about how everything has to be new and so there is sacrified beauty for originality; and how freeverse is prevalent sometimes even in the rhyming poems because of, again, the need for originality - no "you" rhyming with "true", but "limpet" with "strumpet" - and how the poems always have to be "interpretable"; they can't show feeling - oh no, they have to have a complicated hidden message. perhaps i'm reading this wrong, but that's what i get out of it. it's a great poem! i love the last lines : )

[chmpman]

I think he's saying that poetry has become too cerebral rather than emotional.

I may look like an arse asking this, but who is David G.? (I assume he's British, as I've never heard of him.)

[mir]

heh heh. actually . . . on that note, who's Geoffrey Grigson? and Chankley Bore? ignorance is bliss - except when it's exposed.

[rabid reader]

Geoffrey Grigson- Poet, antholigist, enthusiast

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Grigson

Chankley Bore and David G. seem ungoogleable

[mir]

i am stealing the word "ungoogleable" and using it at any relevant part of a conversation. or any other part too. : )

[Grumbleguts]

David G. refers to surrealist poet David Gascoyne who is eminently 'googleable' (which I quite agree is a most pleasing term with or without its negative prefix). Wikipedia gives his details and mentions him being lampooned in this poem.

Upon Chankley Bore I cannot shed no light, although it sounds like a place name it is as unmultimappable as it is ungoogleable.

[rabid reader]

thank-you I quite liked it

[mono]

I agree with all of the above's interpretations of this genius poem.
I have read it a few times, and continually feel in awe of such expression (and much of Thomas' works, for that matter)!
As mir said, I agree that Dylan Thomas may express some feelings of sacrificed beauty for originality - perhaps a desperate attempt to distinguish himself/herself from others by painstakingly in-depth thought (as chmpman mentioned), hence the mentioning of writers like James Joyce, W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, E.E. Cummings, and other often-labelled "brainy" writers.
Considering the era of Dylan Thomas, however, I must mention that I felt an element of simplicity in the poem, as if Thomas suggests that one path to creating beautiful art consists of the simplicity of expression. About the time Dylan Thomas sadly died, in the 1950s, a large infusion of more realistic and down-to-earth poetry appeared with writers such as Sylvia Plath, Raymond Carver, William Stafford, Theodore Roethke, and others. I feel that Thomas, perhaps, saw the beginning of this trend, and rather enjoyed it, giving good advice to his "aunt."

[rabid reader]

I agree with all of the above's interpretations of this genius poem.
I have read it a few times, and continually feel in awe of such expression (and much of Thomas' works, for that matter)!
As mir said, I agree that Dylan Thomas may express some feelings of sacrificed beauty for originality - perhaps a desperate attempt to distinguish himself/herself from others by painstakingly in-depth thought (as chmpman mentioned), hence the mentioning of writers like James Joyce, W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, E.E. Cummings, and other often-labelled "brainy" writers.
Considering the era of Dylan Thomas, however, I must mention that I felt an element of simplicity in the poem, as if Thomas suggests that one path to creating beautiful art consists of the simplicity of expression. About the time Dylan Thomas sadly died, in the 1950s, a large infusion of more realistic and down-to-earth poetry appeared with writers such as Sylvia Plath, Raymond Carver, William Stafford, Theodore Roethke, and others. I feel that Thomas, perhaps, saw the beginning of this trend, and rather enjoyed it, giving good advice to his "aunt."

Yes but he finishes the poem:

And may I yet live to admire
How well your poems light the fire.

As if saying that the advice I give you to write poems of my era are, in the future, going to be thought of as nothing more then fire lighters.

[mono]

As if saying that the advice I give you to write poems of my era are, in the future, going to be thought of as nothing more then fire lighters.

I understand your interpretation, and do not necessarily disagree entirely, but feel that Dylan Thomas may refer to the beginning, hoping yet to live to see the beginning, of a new trend in poetry.

[rabid reader]

Oh, I see how your inturpertating it now, but I had been given the hint that this poem was very sarcastic, and felt that it was written as a satire if anything, especailly:

Remember this: each rose is wormy,
And every lovely woman's germy;
Remember this: that love depends
On how the Gallic letter bends;
Remember, too, that life is hell
And even heaven has a smell
Of putrefying angels who
Make deadly whoopee in the blue.

He seems to be throughing together rediculious sentences just for rhyem(sp?) giving me the impression that he is pointing out how the meaning of poetry is being wtered down, which in the end, as I concluded before, makes him think her poems will be nothing be good fire lighters. I see how one may interperate the "light a fire" as maybe, "give the reader passion" so I wish to hear your interpertion of the excerp I have given, since this poetry does not seem top light a fire, unless the fire is how ridicules poetry is becoming, at least thats all I can see.

[mono]

Remember this: each rose is wormy,
And every lovely woman's germy;
Remember this: that love depends
On how the Gallic letter bends;
Remember, too, that life is hell
And even heaven has a smell
Of putrefying angels who
Make deadly whoopee in the blue.

Hello, rabid reader. Of course with any interpretation of art, especially poetry, I cannot suggest my analysis of any poem appears entirely correct, according to the poet's intention.
I definitely see and agree with your idea that Dylan Thomas wrote this poem in somewhat of a 'desperate' rhyme, but in a satirical manner, I think, partially satirizing many of the poets intentionally wrote poetry with strongly-intended beauty (or perhaps 'sublimity' sounds more poetic).
With the above fragment of his poem, I interpret it as a satire on Romantic poetry, placing emphasis that everyone and everything has faults, nothing seems perfect, despite what purity one would have faith in or perceive. Hence, yes, I agree with you that Thomas intended a great amount of sarcasm and satire in this poem, wishing the best of luck to the erupting 'fire' of the next generation in poetry; altogether, I do not think he frowned upon Romanticism, but thought it time for a new trend.

[freddyheadey]

... and Chankley Bore? ignorance is bliss - except when it's exposed.

Maybe google is better at finding alternative spellings these days.
But try : "Chankly Bore" jumblies lear
-it's the place you'd want to visit if you were a Jumblie and lived.

[Pope of Eruke]

Yeah I think it's pretty clear that he is reacting to the new 'styles' of literature of his day. I like Thomas, and I also like Modernist stuff, I think there is a place for both.