The Life and Work of Dylan Thomas

[quasimodo1]

PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHT LAWS: READ THIS BEFORE POSTING:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17515

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undermilkwood.net/prose_umw1.htm This site is a great start for any interested in Dylan Thomas, many of his works are still under copywright and perhaps unobtainable but many are allowed or public domain. quasimodo1

[Derringer]

:thumbs_up

Good choice- - I always liked one his short stories- - more likely poem- A Holiday. Could be the wrong title, but either way/

[Mrs. Dalloway]

It's a really good website!! :) :)

I love this poem:

Clown in the Moon

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.

Dylan Thomas

[quasimodo1]

Dylan Thomas

From poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/150

Dylan Thomas was born in Wales in 1914. He was a neurotic, sickly child who shied away from school and preferred reading on his own; he read all of D. H. Lawrence's poetry, impressed by Lawrence's descriptions of a vivid natural world. Fascinated by language, he excelled in English and reading, but neglected other subjects and dropped out of school at sixteen. His first book, Eighteen Poems, was published to great acclaim when he was twenty. Thomas did not sympathize with T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden's thematic concerns with social and intellectual issues, and his writing, with its intense lyricism and highly charged emotion, has more in common with the Romantic tradition. Thomas first visited America in January 1950, at the age of thirty-five. His reading tours of the United States, which did much to popularize the poetry reading as new medium for the art, are famous and notorious, for Thomas was the archetypal Romantic poet of the popular American imagination: he was flamboyantly theatrical, a heavy drinker, engaged in roaring disputes in public, and read his work aloud with tremendous depth of feeling. He became a legendary figure, both for his work and the boisterousness of his life. Tragically, he died from alcoholism at the age of 39 after a particularly long drinking bout in New York City in 1953.


{Interesting fact that he read all of D.H.Lawremce}

[quasimodo1]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/profilepages/thomasd1.shtml Dylan Thomas audio from the radio archives of the BBC. There are three other items they have taped. quasimodo1

[quasimodo1]

Another recording of Dylan Thomas with his suprising voice, intoning a self-depracating introduction and then reciting his poem..."A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London".poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=7091

[quasimodo1]

Some stanzas from "Elegy":


Too proud to die; broken and blind he died
The darkest way, and did not turn away,
A cold kind man brave in his narrow pride

On that darkest day, Oh, forever may
He lie lightly, at last, on the last, crossed
Hill, under the grass, in love, and there grow

Young among the long flocks, and never lie lost
Or still all the numberless days of his death, though
Above all he longed for his mother's breast


....

O deepest wound of all that he should die
On that darkest day. oh, he could hide
The tears out of his eyes, too proud to cry.

Until I die he will not leave my side.)

Dylan Thomas

[quasimodo1]

From "Author's Prologue"

Dylan Thomas

This day winding down now
At God speeded summer's end
In the torrent salmon sun,
In my seashaken house
On a breakneck of rocks
Tangled with chirrup and fruit,
Froth, flute, fin, and quill
At a wood's dancing hoof,
By scummed, starfish sands
With their fishwife cross
Gulls, pipers, cockles, and snails,
Out there, crow black, men
Tackled with clouds, who kneel
To the sunset nets,
Geese nearly in heaven, boys
Stabbing, and herons, and shells
That speak seven seas,
Eternal waters away
From the cities of nine
Days' night whose towers will catch
In the religious wind
Like stalks of tall, dry straw,
At poor peace I sing
To you strangers (though song
Is a burning and crested act,
The fire of birds in
The world's turning wood,
For my swan, splay sounds),
Out of these seathumbed leaves
That will fly and fall
Like leaves of trees and as soon
Crumble and undie
Into the dogdayed night.

....

[quasimodo1]

From "Fern Hill":

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.


....

[quasimodo1]

The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes, and before I could read them for myself I had come to love just the words of them, the words alone. What the words stood for, symbolised, or meant was of very secondary importance--what mattered was the very sound of them as I heard them for the first time on the lips of the remote and quite incomprehensible grown-ups who seemed, for some reason, to be living in my world. And those words were, to me, as the notes of bells, the sounds of musical instruments, the noises of wind, sea, and rain, the rattle of milkcarts, the clapping of hooves on cobbles, the fingering of branches on a window pane, might be to someone deaf from birth, who has miraculously found his hearing.
Dylan Thomas...copyright 2007 Web Ring Inc.

[quasimodo1]

From "I Have Longed To Move Away"

Dylan Thomas

I have longed to move away
From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terrors' continual cry
Growing more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea;
I have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
For there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper,
And the thunder of calls and notes.

....

[quasimodo1]

From "The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower":

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.


....

[Poetess]

Thank you Quasi!

[quasimodo1]

From "A Process In The Weather Of The Heart" by Dylan Thomas

A process in the weather of the heart
Turns damp to dry; the golden shot
Storms in the freezing tomb.
A weather in the quarter of the veins
Turns night to day; blood in their suns
Lights up the living worm.

....

A process in the weather of the world
Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child
Sits in their double shade.
A process blows the moon into the sun,
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin;
And the heart gives up its dead.

[tinustijger]

He strikes me as VERY pensive, when I look at that slideshow :P

[Psycheinaboat]

That is a great site, and I just bookmarked it. I have been away from LitNet for a while and it was wonderful to come back and find this thread first off.

[Virgil]

That is a great site, and I just bookmarked it. I have been away from LitNet for a while and it was wonderful to come back and find this thread first off.

Well nice to see you back Psych. I had wondered what happened to you. Would you like to join us in the Virginia Woolf To The Lighthouse book forum discussion?

[quasimodo1]

From "If I Were Tickled By the Rub of Love" by Dylan Thomas:

If I were tickled by the rub of love,
A rooking girl who stole me for her side,
Broke through her straws, breaking my bandaged string,
If the red tickle as the cattle calve
Still set to scratch a laughter from my lung,
I would not fear the apple nor the flood
Nor the bad blood of spring.

Shall it be male or female? say the cells,
And drop the plum like fire from the flesh.
If I were tickled by the hatching hair,
The winging bone that sprouted in the heels,
The itch of man upon the baby's thigh,
I would not fear the gallows nor the axe
Nor the crossed sticks of war.


....

[quasimodo1]

From "The Seed-At-Zero" by Dylan Thomas"

The seed-at-zero shall not storm
That town of ghosts, the trodden womb,
With her rampart to his tapping,
No god-in-hero tumble down
Like a tower on the town
Dumbly and divinely stumbling
Over the manwaging line.

....

Man-in-seed, in seed-at-zero,
From the star-flanked fields of space,
Thunders on the foreign town
With a sand-bagged garrison,
Nor the cannons of his kingdom
Shall the hero-in-to-morrow
Range from the grave-groping place.

[quasimodo1]

DYLAN
Gender: Masculine

Usage: Welsh, English, Welsh Mythology

Pronounced: DUL-an (Welsh), DIL-un (English) [key]

From the Welsh elements dy "great" and llanw "sea". In Welsh mythology Dylan was a god of the sea, the son of Aranrhod. She was accidentally slain by his uncle Govannon. The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and the musician Bob Dylan (real name Robert Zimmerman) are famous bearers of this name.
Aranrhod: Welsh god of the dawn, the sky, fertile land and the moon (female) gave birth to two sons Dylan and Lleu....................... Govannon: Welsh/Irish god of smiths, weapons and brewing

[quasimodo1]

This subject becomes inevitable with some poets/writers and in the journalistic profession, the topic of alcoholism is the truism of choice. Obviously generalities like this are to be avoided. When liberal arts colleges used to teach apologetics, one of the given concepts was...all you have to do to disprove a general statement is provide one exception. With do respect to Dylan Thomas, you might speculate about the hypothetical body of work had he not died so young after a drinking bout in NYC. ...see next post for quote from the BBC

[quasimodo1]

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A638912


After many visits to London he finally moved there in 1934. Dylan had always liked a drink or 12 and had been a common fixture in the pubs throughout Swansea, but it was not until he moved to London that his drinking turned from a fairly serious hobby into something that required full-time dedication. His first poetry collection, including 18 poems, was published in 1934, providing him with an even better excuse for long bouts of public drunkenness. He regaled crowded bars with his banter and drunken antics. It was in a state of advanced liquid refreshment that Dylan met his future wife, Catlin Macnamara. Together they became a force to be reckoned with, as Macnamara was just as wild as the Welsh wordsmith.

A stranger has come
To share my room in the house not right in the head,
A girl mad as birds.
'Love in the Asylum' (Death and Entrances,1946)

[quasimodo1]

From dylanthomas.com/index.cfm?articleid=503

Collected Letters
Dylan Thomas – the Collected Letters edited by Paul Ferris (London: Dent, 2000)



Dylan’s letters are a fascinating read, and dipping into this substantial volume shows how many of the cultural figures of the day he was in touch with. Many of the letters are also carefully crafted works of art in themselves.



Recipients include:

John Arlott
Michael Ayrton
George Barker
E.F. Bozman
John Malcolm Brinnin
Princess Marguerite Caetani
Roy Campbell
C.J. Cellan-Jones
Richard Church
Douglas Cleverdon
Cyril Connolly
John Davenport
Aneirin Talfan Davies
Lawrence Durrell*
T.W. Earp
T.S. Eliot*
Charles Fisher
John Gawsworth
Graham Greene*

[ellen c]

I am so glad to find so many of his friends here, I was born in South Wales not far from his home so he was a local legend to some people, but not to the old-fashioned Welsh like my father who was shocked by his work!
Remember that line from Under Milk Wood, (one hand on the Bible, the other under the bedsheet). Whatever happened, the important thing was "never let the neighbours know", we were respectable people in Wales, and Dylan let the cat out of the bag!

[quasimodo1]

guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1401243,00.htm a link about T.S.Eliot letters, one or more concerned Dylan Thomas. Interesting stuff about Eliot's widow. I digress a little from the Dylan Thomas theme just to indicate how unavailable these communications can be. quasimodo1

[quasimodo1]

"Don't be too harsh to these poems until they're typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction."
....quote by Dylan Thomas

[quasimodo1]

Swansea
The "ugly, lovely town" where Dylan grew up
Laugharne
Where Dylan Thomas spent his latter years
New Quay
The Cardiganshire town which inspired Dylan in the 1940s

[quasimodo1]

On the anniversary of Thomas" death, this cg/virtual recreation of Dylan Thomas reciting his work..virtualdylanthomas.co

[quasimodo1]

My Hero Bares His Nerves
by Dylan Thomas


My hero bares his nerves along my wrist
That rules from wrist to shoulder,
Unpacks the head that, like a sleepy ghost,
Leans on my mortal ruler,
The proud spine spurning turn and twist.

And these poor nerves so wired to the skull
Ache on the lovelorn paper
I hug to love with my unruly scrawl
That utters all love hunger
And tells the page the empty ill.

(First two stanzas of this poem)

[quasimodo1]

From..........Sometimes The Sky's Too Bright

Sometimes the sky's too bright,

.......Sometimes a woman's heart has salt,
Or too much blood;
I tear her breast,
And see the blood is mine,
Flowing from her, but mine,
And then I think
Perhaps the sky's too bright;
And watch my hand,
But do not follow it,
And feel the pain it gives,
But do not ache.

[tinustijger]

Wow! That one's great!

[quasimodo1]

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
....


Dylan Thomas

[quasimodo1]

Some great photographs of Dylan Thomas famous digs, and other information about where he lived.... dylanthomasboathouse.com/english/dylan/dylan_intro.htm

[quasimodo1]

Rare Dylan Thomas film found


A long-lost cinematic treasure has been unearthed by researchers delving into the history of a housing trust.
Among a collection of old films was one written and narrated by one of Britain's greatest poets, Dylan Thomas.

His unmistakable voice can be heard on the film's soundtrack for the first time in more than half a century.

Thomas wrote and narrated the wartime propaganda film to highlight the poor conditions endured by ordinary people in Birmingham. (see next post for link)

[quasimodo1]

news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/wales/1168021.stm...link to rare film.

[quasimodo1]

newquay-westwales.co.uk/nq_cliffwalk.htm This link gives you a sense of place but also how the affluent might ruin it by insisting on living there. quasimodo1

[quasimodo1]

telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/01/ndylan01.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/12/01/ixhome.htmMost of the material discussed in this article are now part of the Dylan Thomas trust set up to benefit his children. quasi

[quasimodo1]

I dreamed my genesis in sweat of sleep, breaking Though the rotating shell, strong As motor muscle on the drill, driving Through vision and the girdered nerve From limbs that had the measure of the worm, shuffled Through all the irons in the grass, metal Of suns in the man-melting night. .......excerpt from "I dreamed my genesis in sweat of sleep"

[quasimodo1]

TWENTY-FOUR YEARS
Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes.
(Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.)

In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor

Sewing a shroud for a journey

By the light of the meat-eating sun.

{first half of this poem by Dylan Thomas}

[quasimodo1]

A process in the weather of the heart
Turns damp to dry; the golden shot
Storms in the freezing tomb.
A weather in the quarter of the veins
Turns night to day; blood in their suns
Lights up the living worm.A process in the eye forwarns
The bones of blindness; and the womb
Drives in a death as life leaks out.A darkness in the weather of the eye
Is half its light; the fathomed sea
Breaks on unangled land.
The seed that makes a forest of the loin
Forks half its fruit; and half drops down,
Slow in a sleeping wind.A weather in the flesh and bone
Is damp and dry; the quick and dead
Move like two ghosts before the eye. ............

{excerpt from this poem by Dylan Thomas}

[Logos]

Closed because there is too much copyright infringement going on and too many posts needed editing. A number have been removed. This is something we take very seriously here at LitNet; please respect poets et al, which might include you someday! and the copyright laws that protect them and their works.

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17515

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