|
Couldn’t resist doing this — same initial word in each stanza as in the DT.
.... Do Not Go Hasty to Give Dylan Hell Do not go hasty to give Dylan hell — that dithyrambic bard who died too young — for his “Do not go gentle” villanelle. Though not his best, those lines have cast a spell these fifty years on readerships far-flung. Do not go hasty to give Dylan hell. Good critics know they should not seek to tell that brilliant Welshman that a trope is wrong in his “Do not go gentle” villanelle. Wild men in flight — can we assess them well? We, with our passion on a lower rung, should not go hasty to give Dylan hell. Brave captious men may pelt the citadel of genius with eggs; still hearts are wrung by that “Do not go gentle” villanelle. And he, who there foretolled his father’s knell — though now, in that good night, he can’t be stung, do not go hasty to give Dylan hell for his “Do not go gentle” villanelle. [This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited June 14, 2004).] |
Having got that out of my system (all in good fun, Wiley, if you’re reading)...
For anyone interested, here’s a link to a page where you can play or download an MP3 file (750Kb) of Dylan Thomas himself reading his villanelle. http://www.salon.com/audio/2000/10/05/thomasd/ He is more in his element in a freer mode. As for the criticism of that villanelle as overblown, I wonder how the same critics would describe some of his more rhapsodical pieces! Of course his rather histrionic style (underlined in his reading) contrasts with the cool disciplined approach of the so-called Movement Poets of the 50s and later in Britain, including Larkin, Amis and others — the Movement being partly a reaction against the DT style — but why can’t we value and appreciate both? (Larkin selected nine DT poems, including the villanelle, for his Oxford Modern Verse anthology in the 70s.) Thomas is out of favour these days, but (as Janet has observed) many of us could learn something from the passion and imaginative language in much of his writing. Learn from, not copy! When we of lesser talent than the original try to emulate certain features of the DT style, the result is likely to be disastrous. A couple of times, I’ve attempted parodies or pastiches of Dylan Thomas, or at least of more obvious facets of his style — sheer mischief on my part, and really a form of homage. I know I can’t get anywhere near the real essence of the man. To me — and I am not alone in this view — Thomas was one of the most original, mesmerising poets of the last century. One may try to imitate some of his surface features, but of course the genius is inimitable. In his imaginative stretching of language, his rhythms and hypnotic cadences, the transmuted emotion, he is unequalled. It’s interesting that he tends to cut across, or show up as superficial, many of our prized dichotomies: metrical versus "free", modern versus traditional, simple versus obscure, representational versus surrealist. In some of his work the surrealist element was overdone, in my opinion, to the point of obscurity. I would instance A Grief Ago. His “play for voices,” Under Milk Wood, is close to being a masterpiece. Ah, but the 54 singing lines of Fern Hill, that rhapsody to lost youth, is a moving and eloquent testament to his genius. http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/dylanthom...ern_hill.shtml I wish that those who say, “Oh, I liked him when I was young, but I’ve outgrown him now,” or some such thing, would take this opportunity to explain themselves. Until they do, I shall assume it is their loss if they are no longer able to appreciate this unique Welsh voice. [This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited June 12, 2004).] |
HQ, I think your villanelle is charming; in fact, I like
it rather better than DT's. (Oh--I just realized how painfully apt his initials are.) Yes, of course one can like both Thomas and Larkin, etc. I think very highly of a few of Thomas' poems, including "In My Craft or Sullen Art" (the most musical and dithyrambic of any poem in syllabics) and "Refusal to Mourn the Death &c" and two or three others, but most of his work, which knocked me out when I was a teenager (and hearing him read) now strikes me as overdone and underthought. For me, and I might add, for many others, there is no comparison between Thomas and Larkin---Larkin is incomparably the better poet. But to each his own. Or as my old friend Henri Coulette liked to say when people were arguing about the merits of this or that poet, "Well. that's horse-racing." [This message has been edited by robert mezey (edited June 12, 2004).] |
Very well done, indeed, Henry - this piece is brilliant. I think I agree with all you say about Dylan Thomas. I remember DT once described himself as being "At the top of the second division" but perhaps he was being too modest. Larkin is great favourite of mine, but he and DT are so dissimilar that I cannot conceive of one of them being "better" than the other, any more than a pomegranate is better than a parnsip. The critic Bernard Levin once said that if he were infinitely more talented, he could imagine himself as Beethoven, but he could never imagine himself as a Schubert, who was too individualistic to be duplicated. And where would Larkin's lugubrious glumness be without a Dylan Thomas to set it off against? Gloom and fear of death are all very well in their way, but we need to be reminded of the life-force too, and Dylan Thomas, for all his playacting and obscurity and "nogood boyo" antics, did this so well. Practising poets are, for obvious reasons, more interested in finding poets who make good models than good poets who are impossible models, and this may be one reason for DT's relatively low stock among poets. Interestingly there are 490 books by or about Thomas on Amazon UK as opposed to 167 by or about Larkin, so DT must be popular with someone - the general public? Well, that can't be bad either. |
BRAVO HENRY!!
Well said. Very well written. Thank you. Janet [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited June 12, 2004).] |
Love, love, love your poem, Quince!
But DT? I almost hate to join the naysayers, if only because I hate spoiling things for younger members who may still be infatuated with DT. For me, for sure, his was a necessary rung I had to climb. But reading him now, I just find so much hot air! And some really bad turns of phrase. And I took his work to task, recently, on my site: http://katebenedict.com/BadThomas.htm |
A further thank you Henry for your excellent dissertation with which I entirely agree.
Robert, it is horse racing to set poets up against each other. I love Larkin but I could not love Larkin so much loved I not Dylan too. Oliver, your Schubert example says it in a nutshell. The reason all that "death of the author" stuff gives me the grims is because it is in the "voice" of the author that the message lies. Janet |
Kate, I'm older than you. IMO It has nothing to do with age except perhaps with energy. We must meet him half way and that may become more difficult as one ages, but it's no comment about the writer. Janet |
Thanks for the compliments on my Dylanelle. Robert, In My Craft Or Sullen Art was one of my favourites long before I realised there was anything syllabic about it. I’ve just revisited that BBC page I linked to above, to find the text of that poem to paste here, but I’m afraid I got sidetracked by the tempting link on the left, Random Poem Generator. It’s not as good as my Sonnet Generator, but amusing enough. I’ll be back with In My Craft... unless someone beats me to it, but here’s the random “Dylan Thomas poem” I generated: I spoke impatiently [This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited June 12, 2004).] |
How true!
No burn nor rage like that of a greenleaved nannygoat. I have often thought that, but never seen it expressed so well! ;) ------------------ Mark Allinson |
Excellent thread, Henry! Your Dylanelle's a peach.
Robert Mezey wrote: I think very highly of a few of Thomas' poems, including "In My Craft or Sullen Art" (the most musical and dithyrambic of any poem in syllabics) and "Refusal to Mourn the Death &c" and two or three others... I'd be interested in a list of the others. I feel like such a waffler when it comes to DT - sometimes I find him incredibly hard to take, and yes, temptingly spoofable, but when he's at his best - wow, he just takes the breath right out of me. |
"Fern Hill", a great poem right up there with Wordsworth's immortality ode.
|
And to comfort all of us twiddlers and tweakers, there are over 200 hand-written drafts of "Fern Hill".
He got it pretty well nailed by the end. ------------------ Mark Allinson |
Lie still, sleep becalmed
Lie still, sleep becalmed, sufferer with the wound In the throat, burning and turning. All night afloat On the silent sea we have heard the sound That came from the wound wrapped in the salt sheet. Under the mile off moon we trembled listening To the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound And when the salt sheet broke in a storm of singing The voices of all the drowned swam on the wind. Open a pathway through the slow sad sail, Throw wide to the wind the gates of the wandering boat For my voyage to begin to the end of my wound, We heard the sea sound sing, we saw the salt sheet tell. Lie still, sleep becalmed, hide the mouth in the throat, Or we shall obey, and ride with you through the drowned. Dylan Thomas |
Quote:
------------------ Mark Allinson |
In My Craft or Sullen Art
In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms, I labor by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of their most secret heart. Not for the proud man apart From the raging moon I write On these spindrift pages Nor for the towering dead With their nightingales and psalms But for the lovers, their arms Round the griefs of the ages, Who pay no praise or wages Nor heed my craft or art. |
The Hand That Signed the Paper
Dylan Thomas The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; These five kings did a king to death. The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder, The finger joints are cramped with chalk; A goose's quill has put an end to murder That put an end to talk. The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever, And famine grew, and locusts came; Great is the hand that holds dominion over Man by a scribbled name. The five kings count the dead but do not soften The crusted wound nor stroke the brow; A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven; Hands have no tears to flow. |
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
Dylan Thomas Never until the mankind making Bird beast and flower Fathering and all humbling darkness Tells with silence the last light breaking And the still hour Is come of the sea tumbling in harness And I must enter again the round Zion of the water bead And the synagogue of the ear of corn Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound Or sow my salt seed In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn The majesty and burning of the child's death. I shall not murder The mankind of her going with a grave truth Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath With any further Elegy of innocence and youth. Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter, Robed in the long friends, The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother, Secret by the unmourning water Of the riding Thames. After the first death, there is no other. BANNED POST |
Janet, sure you could love Larkin loved you not Thomas
too--many people love Larkin who can't bear to read Thomas. Was it HQ who asked what other Thomas poems I liked? I like very much "The Hand that Signed the Paper" (which someone kindly posted) and "The Force that Through the Green Fuse" and one about a hunchback in a park. Can't think of any others, though there may be one or two that don't come to mind. I find most of his stuff "romantic" in the worst sense of that word, "rhetorical" in the worst sense of that word, and generally unreadable. Not the poems of a grown man. As someone tersely said, hot air. He himself had some sense of that, I believe. It interests me that at his readings he tended to recite poems by mssters of the plain style, Hardy especially (his favorite poet, though it would be hard to imagine anyone more different except maybe Larkin, or anyone who less influenced his verse). If you want to read a really good poet named Thomas, read Edward Thomas. |
Edward Thomas, indeed! A maker of many lovely poems. His voice is a quiet one, but at his best his sentences are most beautifully modulated in a manner unique to him, though I have often wondered if another, later English poet, E. J. Scovell, had picked up the same tune. (I shall leave it to others to discuss the relationship between Thomas and Frost if they wish. A new thread?)
Among my favourites are these: “The Owl”, “Fifty Faggots”, “ Adlestrop”, “The Gallows”, “Birds’ Nests”, “A Cat”, “But These Things Also”, “Aspens”, “A Private”, ”No One So Much As You”. His masterpiece, the poem of his which I should have most liked to have written, is “Old Man”. I recall posting it here about two years ago. Thanks for mentioning him, Robert. Kind regards Clive [This message has been edited by Clive Watkins (edited June 14, 2004).] |
Robert and Clive
I have read some Edward Thomas and agree he is fine but what--other than his surname--is the point of mentioning him? As a coarse and rather Chaucerian woman I am tempted to mention John Thomas;) Janet |
Janet, it was just a mild joke. If people feel a passionate need to admire a poet named Thomas, well, Edward strikes me as the very one. But you can go ahead and like all the Thomases.
Try R. S. Thomas too--I'd rather reread him than most of DT. A good list, Clive, though I'd add several others---most especially "Roads"--if that's the right title. "Now all roads lead to France"--I can't read that without tears. I doubt that Yvor Winters ever wrote about Dylan T. but I can just imagine what he might have written. He was a wonderful dismantler of the most feverish romantics and would have had a field day with poor Dylan. |
Robert,
One can choose (within one's limitations) one's own style of writing. But I do believe that when we become the audience it is more rewarding to walk in the shoes of others. Of course we have likes and dislikes. Perhaps my John Thomas joke was too English to travel? If I'd called him Dick? I know the malice and the wit of the Welsh. I spent a fair bit of time in Wales and I never heard two Welshmen agree. Here is another Welsh Thomas having a good crack at the land of my birth: Farewell to New Zealand Wynford Vaughan Thomas Super-suburbia of the Southern Seas, Nature's - and Reason's - true Antipodes, Hail, dauntless pioneers, intrepid souls, Who cleared the Bush - to make a lawn for bowls, And smashed the noble Maori to ensure The second-rate were socially secure! Saved by the Wowsers from the Devil's Tricks, Your shops, your pubs, your minds all close at six. Your battle-cry's a deep, contented snore, You voted Labour, then you worked no more. The Wharfies' Heaven, the gourmet's Purgat'ry: Ice-cream on mutton, swilled around in tea! A Maori fisherman, the legends say, Dredged up New Zealand in a single day. I've seen the catch, and here's my parting crack - It's undersized; for God's sake throw it back! [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited June 14, 2004).] |
Is this not the work of a poetic genius?
[Silence] FIRST VOICE [Very softly] To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters''-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine tonight in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now. Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the web foot cocklewomen and the tidy wives. "Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glow-worms down the aisles of the organplaying wood. The boys are dreaming wicked or of the bucking ranches of the night and the jollyrodgered sea. And the anthracite statues of the horses sleep in the fields, and the cows in the byres, and the dogs in the wetnosed yards; and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sly, streaking and needling, on the one cloud of the roofs. You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing. Only your eyes are unclosed, to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep. And you alone can hear the invisible starfall, the darkest-before-dawn minutely dewgrazed stir of the black, dab-filled sea where the Arethusa, the Curlew and the Skylark, Zanzibar, Rhiannon, the Rover, the Cormorant, and the Star of Wales tilt and ride. Listen. It is night moving in the streets, the processional salt slow musical wind in Coronation Street and Cockle Row, it is the grass growing on Llareggub Hill, dew fall, star fall, the sleep of birds in Milk Wood. Listen. It is night in the chill, squat chapel, hymning, in bonnet and brooch and bombazine black, butterfly choker and bootlace bow, coughing like nannygoats, sucking mintoes, fortywinking hallelujah; night in the four-ale, quiet as a domino; in Ocky Milkman's loft like a mouse with gloves; in Dai Bread's bakery flying like black flour. It is tonight in Donkey Street, trotting silent, with seaweed on its hooves, along the cockled cobbles, past curtained fernpot, text and trinket, harmonium, holy dresser, watercolours done by hand, china dog and rosy tin teacaddy. It is night neddying among the snuggeries of babies. Look. It is night, dumbly, royally winding through the Coronation cherry trees; going through the graveyard of Bethesda with winds gloved and folded, and dew doffed; tumbling by the Sailors' Arms. Time passes. Listen. Time passes. [Under Milk Wood] ------------------ Mark Allinson |
No, it is not; nor of a prose genius either. It's very ornate imaginative writing and it certainly has some fine moments, but like so much of DT, it is too fancy, too fanciful, over-
written and overripe. Compare one of these drunken sentences with, say, this one from the Bible: "Jesus wept." Or this one: "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked." Or these: "Then said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him delicately. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past...and Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal." |
Ah, yes, Mark. The origin of the nannygoats, too! “invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea” makes a mess of Golias’ Razor, yet it works wonderfully here for me. Although DT’s own Welsh accent was muted and anglicised, that this was written for a Welsh voice is evident in its cadences. “Llareggub” was a great piece of naming — I believe the local wowsers wanted it amended to Llaraggeb!
Robert, I admire R. S. Thomas, too. They were contemporaries (R. S. born one year earlier, 1913). I think R. S. began later and anyway only really came to prominence after Dylan’s death. Since you mention him, here’s my tribute, if we can call it that, to the two of them. Thomas to Thomas Black winds dispersing to faraway mindflap Out over the tree full hills to the harbourside And the birdlimed wall and the wheeling terns Slow as March But the apologues Of autumn were burning and cast into cloudfall And the winterwood days of my damsoned delight Sailed away over me... My namesake friend, forgive my stopping you. You were so near in your dithyrambs To the world’s eye, no one remembers How I predated you, or envied either Your drunken rhetoric, you at your desk Intoning of ferns and green chapels. My poems were made in your huge shadow Falling heavy across the page. — Henry Quince [This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited June 14, 2004).] |
Robert,
I love the spare, lapidary language of the King James' Bible, too. No need to convince me there. But I also love the language of Under Milk Wood. I am puzzled by your assertion that the former is "good" writing and the latter "bad". It is, to me, as if a dry and astringent wine should be praised as the paragon of all drinks, and a double-malted chocolate milk-shake, with all its attendant nourishment, be dismissed as cloying and OTT. Like the two styles of writing, I enjoy both styles of drink. The dry, spare, clean text of the King James is what I would characterise as "spiritual" in nature; and the D.T. I would call "soulful". Soul and spirit are two terms we have hopelessly muddled today. But they in fact pertain to two different phenomenological realms of experience. Spirit (which the Greeks called Pneuma) is not a synonym for Soul (which they called Psyche). Here is how the psychologist James Hillman differentiates them: Quote:
But it is true that the history of Western culture is the history of domination of Spirit (mind, will, the masculine principle) over Soul (emotion, imagination, the feminine principle). Under Milk Wood is a rich, lush and nourishing soul-work, and I need it in my diet as much as I need to wash it down with some astringent Biblical wine. ------------------ Mark Allinson |
That's interesting, Mark -- I too am a devotee of Hillman's -- but why would you not categorize Dylan Thomas as a poet of spirit? His language spurts to the heights. Fire-like, spermy images abound (The force that through the green flower ... or sow my salt seed ... I fled the earth and naked climbed the weather ... etc., etc.)
Hillman's definition of soul would pertain more to the quieter voices in poetry, the slower tempos. Depth rather than height. |
Kate, I believe Thomas has both qualities. There is an Australian composer, Ross Edwards, who wrote the ultimate display piece for violin and orchestra and the most sombre, inward symphony that combines restraint and foreboding. Thomas died young but I think his reach was wide. I understand why some people are repelled by Dylan Thomas but I consider myself lucky to be able to accept his excesses in order to find his strengths. I rarely use adjectives. I understand the discomfort. Janet |
Kate,
I am so excited to find another Hillmaniac on the site! I have been teaching Hillman's post-Jungian psychology now for years. And so much of my work (both poetry and prose) is heavily indebted to his influence. Yes, Janet has answered for me. I took those two examples of the polarity of soul/spirit, but even the Bible has its soul elements - the Song of Solomon, for instance. And certainly D.T. has his spirit component. They are, after all, poles of a unity, so you really can't have the one without its other, but some texts seem to move to one end or the other, some alternating, some staying more or less fixed at one end of the polarity. But as Hillman points out, in the New Testament, psyche is used 57 times to pneuma's 274 times, making it more on the spirit end of the spectrum. I would love to have a longer chat sometime about all this stuff. ------------------ Mark Allinson |
Though we’re getting away from Dylan Thomas, I just wanted to say, Mark, that the Jungian line of philosophy appeals to me and that I have read one book by Hillman — The Soul’s Code, a fascinating book which I intend to reread soon.
And let me take this opportunity to thank you for your comments on my “Eye That Dwells...” thread in TDE. I didn’t want to bring it back up the board as I had something else active by then. Henry |
Henry!
Yes, The Soul's Code is a relatively recent work, pitched at the general reader. Hillman is so interesting. He is one of the few psychologists around today who is not ashamed to use the word "soul". His influence has spawned a whole school of "Archetypal Psychology", with writers like Thomas Moore, Robert Sardello and David Miller. Hillman's magnum opus remains his Re-Visioning Psychology, for me the most important work in modern psychology since Freud's dream book. There is so much food for poetry in that book, and it is never off my desk. I would also recomment The Dream and The Underworld and The Myth of Analysis. Perhaps some time we might open a thread on the poetic implications of Hillman's work, which I see as legion. ------------------ Mark Allinson |
As to Dylan Thomas: he is a poet's resource, a mine of ideas and techniques for the laboring-to-love poet with pickaxe and time. I came to Thomas when I read that Bob Zimmerman took the name Dylan, acknowledging his motherlode from the reaches of Hibbings, Minnesota: an iron town.
Dylan Thomas inspired me to read more and write in varying styles. I think he is one of the major 20th century poets and continues to be a door through which others enter the art and craft. Of course, his life, his wife and his patron provide grist for the scandal mill. But that is what many want in their creative types: clay feet and dysfunctional personality traits. But we have his work! |
Don't mean to unearth Dylan again (R.I.P.!) but I thought I'd point out, for those who don't get the New Yorker, that this week's issue has an article responding to the new DT biography. The article is probably worth reading just for the following:
Quote:
--CS |
Clay
I just arrived here intending to post the same link. I wanted to say that this explains much of the reason Americans think less of him than this New Zealander who also knew Wales. I think of Dylan Thomas as the poet of the small town, the dowdy place and the troubled, trapped artist who finds large things in small things. The celebrity plays no part in my personal reading of Thomas. There was a peculiarly inelegant cosiness in Wales. A bit like parts of Ireland. I saw the dramatised version of Brendan Behan's memoir, "Borstal Boy", at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Niall Tobin played the leading role. Behan like Thomas became a victim of celebrity. "Notoriety and critical attention came to Behan in the mid-1950s and contributed to his downfall and death. "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." His irresolute discipline collapsed into prolonged drinking bouts, and self-destructive incidents. The Hostage was Behan's last major drama - his last books were compilations of anecdotes transcribed from tape recordings. Like Dylan Thomas, he was lionized to death in the United States. A lifelong battle with alcoholism ended Behan's career in a Dublin hospital on March 20, in 1964, at the age of 41. - Behan's works have been translated into several languages, among them Stücke fürs Theater (1962) by Heinrich Böll. " I first read and heard Thomas in my cliff-house by an estuary in New Zealand and I felt very close to him. I have not been tyrranised by a string of Dylan fantasies although I love many of Bob Dylan's lyrics. Dylan Thomas is for me a small town boy. Janet [This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited July 02, 2004).] |
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