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'Poets can stop bullets, but bullets can't stop poets'

by Ian Jayasinha

The 49th death anniversary of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas was on the 9th of this month-the month of All Saints and All Souls.

Dylan Thomas was Wales itself and Swansea his ugly, lovely hometown. His poetic genius was the greatest gift that God presented him with.

Dylan's father was a teacher in the local grammar school, and when Dylan was little his father would read to him from the Bible and Shakespeare. Dylan never liked school; on his desk is a pen-knife carving: 'D is for dynamite.'

Dylan left school and joined the local newspaper as a reporter. His first poem published in London was 'And Death Shall Have no Dominion.' 'The force that drives the Green Fumes Drives the Flowers' also became a big hit in London at the time.

Dylan Thomas was obsessed with words.'What I like to do is to treat words as a craftsman does his wood or stone or whatever material he is using to carve, mould, polish and plane into patterns,sequences, sculptures...fugues of sound expressing some lyrical impulse, some spiritual doubt, some dimly-realised truth he wanted desperately to reach or realise.

Dylan's voice sounded like an Anglican clergyman delivering a sermon from the pulpit. To listen to his lyrical voice that with all its nuances that captured audiences was truly an experience. Notorious for his dalliance with Bacchus,it is said that he read better after a binge. Dylan while in school won the mile race! But how did he do it? He was given a handicap of several yards. One of Dylan's dreams - he lived in fantasy - was to open batting for England.

A Dylanphile reading the poet's thoughts said: 'The beautiful world had been made foul by men who have worked against men, by the devil in man which has worked against the God in man. The whole scheme of things is unjust and rotten and money is just a disease on humanity. It's time there was an enormous revolution, to give life itself a chance. What is good of an industrial system piling up garbage while nobody lives?

Dylan was always broke. He told tall-tales in bars to get another drink. Dylan was married to Caitlin Mcnamara. He used to call her 'cat'.

He loved her but they had a warring relationship. Caitlin said:There was something magic between us: an affinity of souls,perhaps. I felt it right from the moment I met Dylan.' Their daughter Aeronwy said that her father was 'the messy package.'

Dylan entertained American folk with many readings. American generosity was such that they gave him cocktail after cocktail. He made good money in the United States but squandered it all on drink.Former US President Jimmy Carter was his greatest admirer.

Dylan's most well-known play was 'Under Milkwood' in which his boozing pal the late, great Richard burton played the lead role. In his play, Dylan recreates Wales and its people far back and where the Rev. Jenkins says:

'We are not wholly bad or good
Who live our lives under Milkwood
And Thou, I know will be the first
to see our best side and not our worst.'

He once said 'poets can stop bullets, but bullets can't stop poets.' Dylan's most loved poem is 'Fernhill'where he used to spend his holidays as a schoolboy.

To quote the last few lines : 'Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

Time held me green and dying,

Though I sang in my chains like the sea.'

Drinking eventually led to Dylan's premature death in New York. 'It was a waste of a life,' said his countless admirers.

Dylan Thomas was Remembered and Honoured on March 1st,1978 when the revered walls of Westminster Abbey reverberated to his readings . Later a plaque was unveiled and dedicated to Dylan in the Abbey's Poets' Corner. When the doors of the great ninth century Abbey were opened ,thousands without invitations poured in.

There was a concert held where Dylan's fellow countryman Richard Burton lead the cast. Elizabeth Taylor too was present.

The memorial Service was described as a 'never to be forgotten day.' Among the great Anglican hymns that were sung was 'Immortal, invisible, God only wise.' The Abbey's choir sang the anthem:

'My soul, there is a country
Far beyond the stars
Where stands a winged sentry
All skillful in the wars.'

Thus ended the life - though not the memory - of the great poet Dylan Thomas.

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