Dylan's Salute

Painting by Alfred Janes

Willow gave us warning,

and now Garrison confirms it:

It's the birthday of the man who wrote the lines "Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light." That's Dylan Thomas, born in Swansea, Wales, in 1914. He's one of the most popular poets of his generation.

At age 20, he published his first collection, 18 Poems. Critics raved. Se married an Irishwoman, lived in London, had three kids, and drank a lot. To make ends meet, he went off to America on the lecture circuit. He often showed up drunk to his readings, where he either whispered or shouted his poems. He had a deep, resonant voice and he was immensely popular.

He drank himself to death in New York City in 1953; he was on his fourth reading tour of America. When he was taken to the hospital because of alcohol poisoning, he told the doctor: "I've had eighteen straight whiskeys. I think that's the record." He died within the week.

He once wrote:

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon; ...

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion."

Dylan Thomas said: "Poetry is the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from an overclothed blindness to a naked vision that depends in its intensity on the strength of the labour put into the creation of the poetry. My poetry is, or should be, useful to me for one reason: it is the record of my individual struggle from darkness towards some measure of light."

And he said,

"Poetry is what makes me laugh

or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails

twinkle, what makes me want to do this

or that or nothing."

An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do.
Dylan Thomas

But time has set its maggot on their track.
Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Dylan Thomas

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.
Dylan Thomas

Dylan talked copiously, then stopped. 'Somebody's boring me,' he said, 'I think it's me.'
Dylan Thomas

Go on thinking that you don't need to be read and you'll find that it may become quite true: no one will feel the need tom read it because it is written for yourself alone; and the public won't feel any impulse to gate crash such a private party.
Dylan Thomas

Great is the hand that holds dominion over man by a scribbled name.
Dylan Thomas

He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.
Dylan Thomas

I went on all over the States, ranting poems to enthusiastic audiences that, the week before, had been equally enthusiastic about lectures on Railway Development or the Modern Turkish Essay.
Dylan Thomas

I've just had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that's the record.
Dylan Thomas

My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.
Dylan Thomas

Never be lucid, never state, if you would be regarded great.
Dylan Thomas

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas

Somebody's boring me. I think it's me.
Dylan Thomas

The function of posterity is to look after itself.
Dylan Thomas

The land of my fathers. My fathers can have it.
Dylan Thomas

There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright.
Dylan Thomas

These poems, with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God, and I'd be a damn' fool if they weren't.
Dylan Thomas

Though lovers be lost love shall not.
Dylan Thomas

Wales is the land of my fathers. And my fathers can have it.
Dylan Thomas