The OTHER Dylan, not Bob
Published on Thu, Jul 15, 2010 by John OwenRead More Owen at Large
He wrote about the sights and sounds of a rainy autumn day, "the call of seagull and rook... the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall" and how "the mussel pooled on the heron priested shore."
Dylan Thomas could have been describing a chill October morning along the Edmonds waterfront.
Local resident Doreen Duggan must have thought so, too. She dedicated a plaque to the Welch poet on a bench near city hall. The quotation reads, "And every evening at sundown, I say a blessing on the town."
The quotation is from a radio play "Under Milk Wood."
I share Doreen Duggan's expressed fondness, for Edmonds and for the works of the Welch poet.
Thomas quit school at 16 to take a reporting position with his hometown newspaper in Swansea.
He often announced, "Wales is the land of my fathers. And they can have it." Owen is a Welch name, as common as "Murphy" in Ireland.
I enjoyed a long-ago drive through Wales. But I'm not sure I would have chosen to spend a life there.
Thomas actually seemed to prefer New York City, specifically Greenwich Village. He "returned" to Wales by inventing the community of Llareggyb in his most famous work, Under Milk Wood.
It was not a nostalgic reunion with people and memories he savored.
A critic pointed out that the fictional Llareggub was a community populated by bigamists, pedophiles, necrophiles, nymphomaniacs, satanists and cannibals to name just a few of its colorful little eccentricities.
It is a town where dysfunctions ranging from alcoholism to xenophobia are a way of life." Even the name of the place is "buggerall" spelled backwards.
Certainly, Edmonds is not Llareggub. The quotation, "And every evening at sundown, I say a blessing on the town," more likely recalls the poet's childhood memories of a portside neighborhood in Swansea.
That is not Dylan Thomas' most famous quotation. The admonition, "Do not go gentle into that good night," shares that distinction with the last words Thomas spoke, after an evening spent in The White Horse Tavern.
"I've had 18 straight whiskies. I think that's a record."
Dylan Thomas could have been describing a chill October morning along the Edmonds waterfront.
Local resident Doreen Duggan must have thought so, too. She dedicated a plaque to the Welch poet on a bench near city hall. The quotation reads, "And every evening at sundown, I say a blessing on the town."
The quotation is from a radio play "Under Milk Wood."
I share Doreen Duggan's expressed fondness, for Edmonds and for the works of the Welch poet.
Thomas quit school at 16 to take a reporting position with his hometown newspaper in Swansea.
He often announced, "Wales is the land of my fathers. And they can have it." Owen is a Welch name, as common as "Murphy" in Ireland.
I enjoyed a long-ago drive through Wales. But I'm not sure I would have chosen to spend a life there.
Thomas actually seemed to prefer New York City, specifically Greenwich Village. He "returned" to Wales by inventing the community of Llareggyb in his most famous work, Under Milk Wood.
It was not a nostalgic reunion with people and memories he savored.
A critic pointed out that the fictional Llareggub was a community populated by bigamists, pedophiles, necrophiles, nymphomaniacs, satanists and cannibals to name just a few of its colorful little eccentricities.
It is a town where dysfunctions ranging from alcoholism to xenophobia are a way of life." Even the name of the place is "buggerall" spelled backwards.
Certainly, Edmonds is not Llareggub. The quotation, "And every evening at sundown, I say a blessing on the town," more likely recalls the poet's childhood memories of a portside neighborhood in Swansea.
That is not Dylan Thomas' most famous quotation. The admonition, "Do not go gentle into that good night," shares that distinction with the last words Thomas spoke, after an evening spent in The White Horse Tavern.
"I've had 18 straight whiskies. I think that's a record."