Dylan Thomas
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
"The most absolute poetry that has been written in our time..."
(Sir Herbert Read)
Dylan Thomas was born in 1914 in Swansea, Wales. His father However, made him attend speach classes, so in recordings that are available of him reading his, and others poetry there is no trace of a welsh accent. It is widely held that he wrote his greatest volume of work between the ages of 16 and 20 and later poems are revisions of these. his work was first published in 1934 with "18 poems".
His poems caused as much controversy as his lifestyle, with their powerful, carefully crafted obscurity. In life he was the heavy drinking, bohemian, wild poet, and it is said his last words were "I've had 18 straight scotches in a row, I think thats a record". Whether that is true or not,he colasped and later died in New York in November 1953, of an "insult to the brain" caused by alchohol.
After his death, critcs claimed that he was an overrated poet, famous only for his wild life. But looking at the poems today, you dicover poems of power, originality, and subtke beautiful imagery, interspersed with moment of pure genius
"Time held me green and dying,
though I sang in my chains like the sea"
(More to follow)
(Sir Herbert Read)
Dylan Thomas was born in 1914 in Swansea, Wales. His father However, made him attend speach classes, so in recordings that are available of him reading his, and others poetry there is no trace of a welsh accent. It is widely held that he wrote his greatest volume of work between the ages of 16 and 20 and later poems are revisions of these. his work was first published in 1934 with "18 poems".
His poems caused as much controversy as his lifestyle, with their powerful, carefully crafted obscurity. In life he was the heavy drinking, bohemian, wild poet, and it is said his last words were "I've had 18 straight scotches in a row, I think thats a record". Whether that is true or not,he colasped and later died in New York in November 1953, of an "insult to the brain" caused by alchohol.
After his death, critcs claimed that he was an overrated poet, famous only for his wild life. But looking at the poems today, you dicover poems of power, originality, and subtke beautiful imagery, interspersed with moment of pure genius
"Time held me green and dying,
though I sang in my chains like the sea"
(More to follow)
