The Poems of Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas’s book The Poems of Dylan Thomas was both a fun and articulate read and I can say truthfully that I deeply enjoyed reading this collection of poems. Within the collection of his poetry Dylan Thomas seems to touch upon multiple traditions ranging from villanelles like Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, prose poetry like In Country Sleep, as well as a large amount of free verse like his There Was A Savior. In terms of the nature of the collection of his poems I would say they are all somewhat closely related, in the fact that the majority of the poems consistently deal with three major motifs. The three major motifs of this book to me clearly were the struggle between life and death, love and despair, and finally faith and search for meaning. Each of these clear motifs in most of his poetry is very eloquently addressed and adds a significant amount of tension to the individual pieces. In addition, I personally felt (and perhaps this is because of their deep subject matter) that the motifs of life, death, love, despair, and faith were all infused in many unique ways, as a result I thought the poems were very surprising and interesting, yet I also felt that they did not seem to follow a particular overarching plot.

Due to the deep subject matter of the collection of poems, I thought that the whole book followed a very serious tone, in which Dylan Thomas identified through is motifs and themes the hard human questions we are all struggling to answer for ourselves. Often throughout the poems of his collection, Dylan Thomas’s speakers don’t necessarily provide answers to these questions; instead they highlight the struggle of human existence to understand the significance of love, life, and faith. However, on occasion his speakers do provide answers or at the very least opinions on the subjects of life, death, love, and despair such as his poem Death Shall Have No Dominion which just as the title suggests is a comment on how death cannot compare to strength of life or the impact of one’s life. Ultimately the speakers of his poems within this book all seem to carry an air and tone of not just seriousness, but wisdom and deep contemplation as well as the occasional sense of deep passion for what they are saying.

Overall, the technical structure of Thomas’s poems varies greatly with this book. As stated before Dylan Thomas throughout the book shows mastery of many different types of formats, including prose, villanelles, free verse, rhyming, no rhyming, meter and no meter. Similar to the overall format of his poems the use of enjambment, line structure and shape (most clearly demonstrated in his poem Vision and Prayer I) also greatly vary in the collection and can even seem sporadic at times. In the end, I would implore any poet or writer reading this collection to emulate Dylan Thomas’s creativity in his use of different styles and formats as well as addressing the serious emotions and problems we as human beings face through his poetry. The only aspect of this collection I would advise not to emulate would be the ending. While I did enjoy the individuality and surprising nature of Thomas’s poems within the book, the sense of no clear connection or arch between the poems extended to the feeling that the whole book ended abruptly and didn’t really cap or tie together the emotional issues addressed with the final poems of book. However, given the fact that the motifs and themes within the book are those that all humans have struggled to answer, perhaps the abrupt ending is fitting. In conclusion, I would recommend this collection to any writer interested in Dylan Thomas or great poetry in general.