Poet · Pairing IX
Dylan Thomas
1914–1953 · Welsh poet and broadcaster
Dylan Thomas, born in Swansea, Wales, was one of the most musical and charismatic poets of the twentieth century. His richly sonorous, image-crowded verse — meant above all to be heard — made him hugely popular, and his celebrated reading voice filled halls and radio broadcasts on both sides of the Atlantic.
His best-known poems, including “Do not go gentle into that good night” and “Fern Hill,” combine dazzling sound with deep feeling about childhood, nature, time, and death. He also wrote the beloved “play for voices” Under Milk Wood and the memoir A Child’s Christmas in Wales.
Famous for both his talent and his turbulent, hard-drinking life, Thomas died in New York City in 1953 at just 39, during one of his legendary American reading tours — cementing his status as a romantic, meteoric figure of modern poetry.
In this curriculum
Read him in Pairing IX — Confronting Mortality →