Writer / Poet / Film Maker / Director
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Dylan Thomas was a writer, actor, film maker and director although his life was short he completed a wealth of work including hundreds of poems, surreal short stories, beautiful broadcasts about his childhood, a novel and a play-for-voices - Under Milk Wood, all of which were written before he was forty.
Under Milk Wood is a radio drama that was commissioned by the BBC and originally broadcast in 1954. An omniscient narrator invites the audience to listen to the dreams and innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of the fictional small Welsh fishing village, Llareggub.
Life always offers you a second chance. is called tomorrow.
The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps... so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in.
Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales, in 1914. An undistinguished pupil, he left school at 16 and became a journalist for a short time. Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager, and the publication in 1934 of Light breaks where no sun shines caught the attention of the literary world.
Somebody's boring me. I think it's me.
Whatever talents I possess may suddenly diminish or suddenly increase. I can with ease become an ordinary fool. I may be one now. But it doesn't do to upset one's own vanity.
His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940s brought him to the public's attention, and he was frequently used by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene.
Notable poems include, And death shall have no dominion and Do not go gentle into that good night...
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.
The interior of Thomas's £5 writing shed in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire is shown in the image above.
If you want a definition of poetry, say: 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 and let it go at that.
Poetry is not the most important thing in life...
I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets.
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