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Dylan Thomas biography :
Considered one of the best poets of
the 20th century, Dylan Thomas was born in 1914 in
Swansea, Wales. The farms and coastlines of this
childhood home figured prominently in his poetry. He
started writing at a very young page; his first
recorded poem, “The Song of the Mischievous Dog,"
was composed when he was just eleven. He also
dabbled in short stories (some contained in the
collection A Portrait of A Young Artist as a Young
Dog), radio plays, scripts, speeches, and essays
(including A Child’s Christmas in Wales, a
recollection).
His first collection of poetry was published when he
was 20 years old, launching a long and prominent
literary career. His books were well received, and
his style (which used traditional forms of rhyme and
meter, and strong, simple words from native English)
stood out among the flowery and experimental verses
that were characteristic of the early Modern poets.
What he rejected in terms of ornamentation, he
replaced with intense imagery. In fact, Dylan Thomas
“intense” was an adjective often associated with
him, even of his readings of his work. Those who
heard his voice described him as a “wild Welsh
bard”—as one can judge from the surviving
recordings.
Dylan Thomas married Caitlin MacNamara in 1937, and
had three children. They lived in Laugharne, Wales;
his home is now a tourist destination. He died in
1953, at the relatively young age of 39 years old,
after a heavy bout of drinking. It was a life, and
death, that eerily echoed one of his more famous
poems: "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night".
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Books of poetry by
Dylan Thomas :
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Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
1934-1952
Book
Description
Dylan Thomas's poems gambol and frisk
across the tongue and imagination like those of few
poets I have ever read. His choicely crafted (and
often synaesthetic) phrases, his musicality, and his
laughingly lilting language are nicely captured by
the first two stanzas of Fern Hill--read it aloud
for full effect:
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 honored 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...
This collection of his poems contains only those
pieces he wished preserved and should be owned by
anyone who loves beautifully crafted language.
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