Charged language? Archaism? You decide.
 

Because we so often talk about how contemporary a poem's language has to be, and how it has to be both heightened and understandable, I was struck today by this post on Ernest Hilbert's E-Verse Radio blog.

"All that I owe the fellows of the grave" by Dylan Thomas

I'll come right out and confess that I didn't know the poem previously, and that like most of Thomas it feels OTT in places. Nevertheless, it's a grabber, something that seizes my readerly attention and keeps it.

What would we say about it on a modern po-board?


[Editing back: I've found DT's Collected in Google Books, and it looks like there's an error in EH's text. "bonehead" should be "bonebound," which makes better sense to me.]

I think it's good idea. It's a stretch for everybody--good for the "po" muscles.

Wow, Maryann! What a find! Brilliant. I didn't know the poem either. But I freely admit I should have.

Would it get slammed here? Yes, on at least three counts. First, I'd curse him for his use of 'that.' At the start of S2, it's in nearly every line. Useless! ;)

Second, he'd get trashed for his adjective-noun pairs. Badly. There are a ton: "pale estates" "fortuned bone" "ravaged roots." And that's just the first few lines. :eek:

Then there's the "the X of Y" fault, so often lately cursed. "The flask of blood," "The hint of death." Someone would tell him it's not worthy of the deep end! ;)

But the real kicker, and the most delicious irony of all, comes in the last stanza, and from last night:

"Through periscopes rightsighted from the grave;"

Were I a better, more knowledgeable scholar, I would have cited this poem. You did, and you did it gracefully, and for that, you have my admiration. I bow to you.

Thanks,

Bill

I just want to brag about DT's use of the periscope emerging from a grave--how vindicating!

But aside from that, he'd also get bashed for the fairly unnecessary 'O'. And everything Bill said he'd get bashed for, though, this being a DT poem, it wouldn't quite work without the ridiculous noun-adjective pairs. But the last stanza is really nice.

Given Dylan's love of Freudian symbolism it is hard not to interpret his use here as somewhat phallic, especially in proximity to his scarlet trove, bonehead fortune and 'his grain' and falling wheat - and O, he was awfully fond of the old womb/tomb trope, the home of the 'bone' -- the 'grave-digging spade' combining sex, birth and death -- one of his most favourite subjects. It is his intentional play with Freudian themes, the stamp of Frazer together with the treatment of religious symbolism such as resurrection as an abstraction of the facts of nature and the cycles of fertility of man and earth that for me so particularly dates Thomas as a poet of his time - and a favourite of mine - but no doubt he would pretty much get short shift in a contemporary workshop setting. But sex, symbolism, sense and archaisms be damned; they are all secondary to the sheer sensational sensuality to be had surfing the sonic waves of the spoken sounds; with Dylan just submit to the ride and share in the surreal, sublunary rythyms of assonant succulence, slide along the vowels through the tunnels of consonant clumpings, allow the alliteration to blow you to shore sailing in a Venus shell in a sandscape by Dali, foaming in the froth of a heavenly seeding of letters, churning their enchanting spell, free from the affectatious fetters of contemptory fascists of fashion sat pointing their feet - he's Welsh for heaven's sake - just listen to the cadence.

:)

When the Muse calls it's always hard going for beginners, but if Mr. Thomas wishes to be taken seriously as a poet, he'll have to serve more cake with a lot less icing, and take care to ensure it isn't so stale next time. He might find the recent thread about contemporary tastes to be informative. Perhaps he would benefit from participating in a forum where the standards aren't as high, but at the very least he should steer clear of the Deep End. There be monsters. That said, I do see a glimmer of talent here -- perhaps working within the restraints of a repeating form, like the villanelle, would toughen him up.

I hope this is helpful. Don't give up!

Ed

Ah, but this is where the top actually IS !

Of course, in due respect to the peerage in general, I must affirm my complete agreement with Senator Shacklee, that, while this boy has some some flickers of talent, he must put away childish hyperbole, stop glittering, abandon his juvenile swashbuckles, and hunker down to writing real, enduring verse, like that of the immortal Erasmus Darwin, for example.

Toby Mindless Windlass-Hyphen, F.R. Graphological Society

Well, this is not a joke review poking fun at workshop responses, it's for real.

I don't find this poem in Thomas "Collected Poems" and though I am a huge fan of his writing, I don't think it is a very good poem. The first four lines are very good, but it declines after that.

The preface to Collected Poems 1934 - 1953 (Everyman, 1988) has this to say.

I would like to know more about the history of this poem. It seems to me to have Thomas' stamp on it, but not the final polish. Alas, it might have been found among his papers and wasn't at all a poem he wishes to be known by.

Coincidentally, I have just been reading The Collected Poems: Sylvia Plath and not without some trepidation. Not until I got to page 35 did I find a poem that was mature and publishable. Also in this case, I believe that Sylvia Plath would be appalled to find many of these poems published--she never threw away a poem, so anything poemlike she wrote is (I presume) in this book and it drags down her reputation. I bought the Collected because I only had three slim volumes purchased decades ago: Ariel, Crossing the Water, Winter Trees, all of them fine volumes and carefully selected.

In short. Dylan Thomas did not include this in his "Collected" so I think he did not regard it as "finished" i.e. publishable. Neither do I, though of course my opinion isn't worth a fig.

I do wonder though about the appearance of Through periscopes rightsighted from the grave; as a similar metaphor appears in Ian's poem. I wonder if he was inspired by the Thomas' poem or if the image welled up independently (no pun intended).

I hadn't read this poem previously--I don't read much Thomas.

That's a shame about Plath, but it's a hard thing for a famous poet to avoid. I think we all remember when Auden's juvenallia got out.

I'm glad there's interest in this question. I continue to think the poem is plenty interesting, though not unassailable. My point is that I wouldn't assail it merely for its inversions, or even its adjective-heavy choices, because all of it is consistent with the rest.

Editing back: I can't seem to create a link that works, but if you search "The poems of Dylan Thomas, Volume 1" you'll find the book. It's a 2003 publication. You may get there faster if you add "google books."

I'm looking for, and not finding, any way to date the poem. I'd like to do that because I also suspect it's early. But then, Thomas's early poems were the ones that caught Eliot's interest, as I understand it.