Collected Poems 1934-1952
With an Introduction and Notes by Sally Minogue
Dylan Thomas wrote some of the best-known and best-loved poems of the twentieth century, amongst them ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, ‘Fern Hill’ and ‘The force that through the green fuse drives the flower’. This edition reproduces the Collected Poems 1934-1952 which the poet authorised just before his tragically early death at the age of 39 and which contains, as he said, ‘most of the poems I have written, and all, up to the present year, I wish to preserve’. His was a precocious talent: his first poem was published nationally at the age of 18, and his first collection, 18 Poems, was published when he was just 20. In spite of his early death, he therefore left behind a substantial and significant body of work, represented here. His poems cover the span of birth to death, while at their heart is a lyrical, joyful impulse that celebrates life.
The Introduction and Notes set Thomas’s poetry in their cultural (including their Welsh) context and poetic tradition, and offer ways in to a poetry which is highly crafted, and rich in language and emotion.