The key to reading [his poetry] is reading him aloud, slowly, hitting every vowel and consonant, and worrying about what it all means later.¹

The foregoing is slight exaggeration although it is true that his work is intended for the ear--to be read aloud--rather than the eye. Dylan Marlais Thomas was born on October 27, 1914 in Swansea, Galmorganshire, Wales--a thorough son of a heritage that inflects the spoken word with a music arising out of an older Welsh-Gaelic oral tradition. His first name "Dylan" is a reference to a character in the Mabinogian, an ancient Welsh book of myths. His middle name, "Marlais" is a corruption of his maternal grandfather's name "Marlas" and is the name of the stream near where the man lived, very Welsh. It is in his writing, however, that he expresses his ancestry to us, and it is probably no coincidence that the only person to do real justice to his work in performance, other than the poet himself, was Sir Richard Burton, another Welshman.

As a child, as it appears from most accounts, Dylan Thomas' life was rather ordinary. We have no accounts of parental abandonment, no reports of abusive patronry.² Then again, we are speaking about a culture that tends to suborn and obscure the unpleasant rather than make it public. Too, he's never quite presented himself to that school of criticism that explores the reasons for self-destructive behaviors--in his case, alcoholism--and whether those reasons express themselves in the work. What is common knowledge shared is that he attended the local grammar school in Swansea. In other words, he obtained a rather ordinary education.

However, Dylan Thomas was far from ordinary. At the age of sixteen, he became a junior reporter for a local newspaper, The South Wales Daily Post (1931-1932). In 1933, he became a free-lance writer, gaining a somewhat wider readership, if limited by consistency. All of this sounds rather pedestrian unless one compares these dates to British and world history. These were extremely turbulent times of economic depression, labor organization (particularly in mining towns of Wales), strikes, and open conflicts between the British government and workers. Surely, anyone living in these days preceding WWII had to be affected by the civil unrest and activity.

During this time, 1933, Thomas began submitting his poetic work to a publication called the Sunday Referee under a column, Poet's Corner. The column, edited by Victor Neuburg and Rumia Sheila MacLoed, awarded a prize of publication of collected poems to those poets whose work would be consistently considered of merit over a six month period. Thus, in 1934, at the age of nineteen, Dylan Thomas' first volume Eighteen Poems was published and received with critical acclaim--popular acclaim would come later. He also moved to London where he likely continued to pursue his journalistic career for a livelihood while continuing his poetic one more seriously.

In April of 1936, he met his future wife, Caitlin Macnamara. In September 1936, his second volume of poetry Twenty-five poems was released. In July 1937, Dylan and Caitlin were married and the following year they moved to Laugharne, Wales. Their first child, Llewelyn Edouard Thomas was born in January 1939. The Map of Love (novel) was published in August and The world I breathe (novel) in December and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (series of short stories) in 1940. These were the days of the so-called phony war before Dunkirk and just subsequent and anyone paying attention at all should note that he is writing prolifically as if in fever.

Thomas' writing shed in Wales.

At the outbreak of the armed conflict beginning WWII, Dylan Thomas attempted to enlist in the military but was rejected due to health reasons (he was a mere twenty-five in 1939). Instead, to serve the war effort, he entered the documentary film corp with the film company The Strand, wrote and performed radio scripts which were broadcast to troops overseas via the BBC, and continued writing short stories. But to add insight into his already widely recognized talent, the entire portfolio of his original manuscripts to date then housed in British Museum in London was sent to the Library of Congress Archives in Washington, DC for safekeeping by the British government along with the work of many other better known literary giants.³

He continued to write both prose and poetry throughout WWII. There are many examples of the horrors of that conflict visited on the civilian population of London evidenced in his work--in particular, "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, By Fire, of a Child in London (publication background uncertain)" and "Among Those Killed In The Dawn Raid Was A Man Aged A Hundred (published in Deaths and Entrances, 1946)."

After the war, he continued what had become popular BBC poetry and story reading broadcasts and began doing reading tours throughout the United States. His second child Aeronwy Bryn Thomas was born in March 1943. Deaths and Entrances was published in 1946. In 1949, his third child, Colm Garan Hart Thomas was born. In 1952, his final volume while living Collected Poems was published and he wrote Under Milkwood, the radio play for voices.

During his fourth lecture tour of the United States in 1953, and a few days after his 39th birthday, he collapsed in his New York hotel. He died on November 9th at St Vincent's Hospital, New York.⁴ His body was sent back to Laugharne, Wales, where his grave is marked by a simple wooden cross.

Notes:

1. Quoted from website consulted: Dylan Thomas: His Craft, His Life
2. It may also be merely a lack of such information presented in the sources I consulted.
3. While most of those original manuscripts were returned at the end of the war, Dylan Thomas' was not. The work was still noted to be among the archives of the LOC as late as 1968. Whether they were ever returned to the British Museum or to his widow is unknown.
4. The cause of death is believed to have been severe alcohol poisoning.

Resource consulted:

• Dylan Thomas
• Dylan Thomas: His Craft, His Life

Listing of Some Works

• 18 Poems (1934)
• 25 Poems (1936)
• The Map of Love (1939)
• The World I Breathe (1939)
• Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (1940)
• New Poems (1943)
• Deaths and Entrances (1946)
• Selected Writings of Dylan Thomas (1946)
• Twenty-Six Poems (1950)
• In Country Sleep (1952)
• Collected Poems, 1934-1952 (1952)
• The Doctors and the Devils (1953)
• Under Milkwood (1954)
• Quite Early One Morning (1954)
• Adventures in the Skin Trade and Other Stories (1955)
• A Prospect of the Sea (1955)
• A Child's Christmas in Wales (1955)
• Letters to Vernon Watkins (1957)
• The Beach of Fales (1964)

(Message #1964 and 1965, 12/03/1999)

Purported to be the poem that originally won the contest which launched his career, this poem was first published in 1933 in Sunday Referee under a column, Poet's Corner.

[1966, 991203, AngelPie_Mouse]

Many readers consider the following poem to be the best work of this author. It is an extremely complicated poem, in terms of its mechanics. Not only does it depend on the sounding of only two rhymes throughout the five tercets and closing quatrain, but each line contains ten syllables.

The poem was written in 1951 to the poet's father. It evidences his great love and respect for the elder man who was once vital and strong, now apparently failing of eyesight and dying.

[1991, 991215, AngelPie_Mouse]

This particular poem, for some unfathomable reason, is my favorite by this author. Perhaps, it is the energy and force in his words despite the subject matter; perhaps, it is the unconditional nature of thelove he expresses; perhaps, it is just the bald honesty of what he says and the music with which he says it.

[1992, 991215, AngelPie_Mouse]

Message 1967
Read More About Dylan Marlais Thomas
AngelPie_Mouse (na/F/Los Angeles, CA, USA) 12/03/1999 05:46 am EST

The following URLs come from the listing of FAMILIAR AND FAVORITE POETS on our own website (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Bistro/2298). We invite you to check them out and read more about Dylan Marlais Thomas(also, please let us know if you have any difficulties with these sites).

• Boat House - the works of Dylan Thomas. [http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/6433/BoatHouse.html]
• Child's Christmas in Wales[http://www.bfsmedia.com/MAS/Dylan/Christmas.html]
• Dylan Thomas[http://pcug.org.au/~wwhatman/dylan_thomas.html]
• Dylan Thomas: His Craft, His Life[http://home.earthlink.net/~tenspeed/SimonaSara/dylan.htm]