Dylan Marlais Thomas

Although being mainly famous for his play Under Milk Wood which he made for the BBC, his main literary heritage consists of poetry. Born on 27 October 1914 in Swansea, Wales he starts writing poetry at the age of 15, when he starts his first Notebook (a tradition he kept until 1934). In September 1933 his first poem gets published and in only one year later his first book "18 Poems" gets published and he moves to London.
All in all 6 books of poetry by Dylan Thomas get released:
18 Poems 1933
Twenty-five Poems 1936
The Map of Love 1939
Deaths and Entrances 1946
In Country Sleep 1952
Collected Poems 1952
There are other books like "The World I breathe", but as far as I am informed they do not contain unique poetry

1937 he marries Caitlin Macnamara, with whom he has three children: their son Llewelyn born 1939, their daughter Aeronwy born 1943 and finally 1949 their second son Colm. In the same year as his marriage he has his first radio broadcast. It is "Life and the Modern Poet". Working as a broadcaster becomes one of Dylan Thomas several jobs, including working as a script writer, actor, reporter and reviewer, but one he keeps up till his end. The radio play "Under Milk Wood" is broadcasted posthumously by the BBC in 1954 (though the first performance of it was 1953 in New York). It is a great description of one night and one day in the small Welsh town of Llareggub.
But Thomas did not only release plays and poetry but also film scripts(The Doctor And The Devils) and some short stories Some are featured in the poetry book "The Map of Love", others in "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog" (1940 and "Adventures in the Skin Trade" (posthumously 1955). One of his more famous short story is A Child's Christmas in Wales. 1950 he goes onto his first American tour, which is followed by a Second one 1952 and a Third 1953. This tour lasted from April till June (including the premiere of "Under Milk Wood") and was used to promote the US release of "Collected Poems". Only three months later he came back to the USA for his last tour. On 27th October 1953 he celebrated his 39th birthday in London. Dylan, being a heavy drinker (alcoholic would maybe fit better, but he was not completely controlled by his illness, as he succeeded in keeping his working phases clean of alcohol) for all his life, collapsed after too much alcohol and died on 9th November 1953 of pneumonia.

A (hopefully) complete list of Dylan Thomas' poetry:
I used the names used in "Collected Poems", I have sometimes seen some of them referred to by the complete first line, but I think the names I used are "correct"

18 Poems
I see the boys of summer
When once the twilight locks
A process in the weather of the heart
Before I knocked
The force that through the green fuse
My hero bares his nerves
Where once the waters of your face
If I were tickled by the rub of love
Our Eunuch dreams
Especially when the October wind
When, like a running grave
From love's first fever
In the beginning
Light breaks where no sun shines
I fellowed sleep
I dreamed my genesis
My world is pyramid
All all and all

Twenty-Five Poems
I, in my intricate image
This bread I break
Incarnate devil
Today, this insect
The seed-at-zero
Shall gods be said
Here in this spring
Do you not father me
Out of the sighs
Hold hard, these ancient minutes
Was there a time
Now
Why east wind chills
A grief ago
How soon the servant sun
Ears in the turret hear
Foster the light
The hand that signed the paper
Should lanterns shine
I have longed to move away
Find meat on bones
Grief thief of time
And death shall have no dominion
Then was my neophyte
Altarwise by owl-light

The Map Of Love
Because the pleasure-bird whistles
I make this in a warring absence
When all my five country senses
We lying be seasand
It is the sinners' dust-tongued bell
O make me a mask
The spire cranes
After the funeral
Once it was the colour of saying
Not from this anger
How shall my animal
The tombstone told when she died
On no work of words
A saint about to fall
'If my head hurt a hair's foot'
Twenty-four years


Deaths And Entrance
The Conversation of Prayer
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
Poem in October
This Side of the Truth
To Others than You
Love in the Asylum
Unluckily for a Death
The Hunchback in the Park
Into her Lying Down Head
Do not go gentle into that good night
Deaths and Entrances
A Winter's Tale
On a Wedding Anniversary
There was a Savior
On the Marriage of a Virgin
In my Craft or Sullen Art
Ceremony After a Fire Raid
Once below a time
When I Woke
Dawn Raid
Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed
Vision and Prayer
Ballad of the Long-legged Bait
Holy Spring
Fern Hill


In Country Sleep
In country sleep
Over Sir John's hill
Poem on his birthday
Lament
In the white giant's thigh
Elegy
Vernon Watkins note


Note: Intentionally the poems were not hard linked, as all of them are still copyrighted. If someone writes something about one of this poems please msg me, as this is sadly very uncommon and I think it looks better without everything hard linked and to avoid node shells, I did not make hard links.

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