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Related: About this forumDylan Thomas Fern Hill
A Poet in New York
9:00 PM on MPT 22, 1 hr 30 min 2014
Poet Dylan Thomas arrives in New York with his marriage in shambles and illness plaguing him. To deal with his unhappiness, he increasingly turns to alcohol that further fuels his destructive lifestyle.
Siwsan
(26,251 posts)Like my family, he was a "Swansea Jack". We read 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night' at my father's funeral and 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' is a must for me to see and hear, every December.
elleng
(130,753 posts)One Christmas was so much like the other, in those years around the sea-town corner now, out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve, or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
All the Christmases roll down towards the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged, fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.
It was on the afternoon of the day of Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, although there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they would slide and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their eyes.
The wise cats never appeared. We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snowseternal, ever since Wednesdaythat we never heard Mrs. Prothero's first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or, if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor's polar cat. But soon the voice grew louder. "Fire!" cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong.
And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, towards the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring out of the dining-room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room.
Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, "A fine Christmas!" and smacking at the smoke with a slipper.
"Call the fire brigade," cried Mrs. Prothero as she beat the gong. "They won't be here," said Mr. Prothero, "it's Christmas."
There was no fire to be seen, only clouds of smoke and Mr. Prothero standing in the middle of them, waving his slipper as though he were conducting.
"Do something," he said.
Siwsan
(26,251 posts)As he did to my Father's.
We, my family, husband and children, visited Wales, along with my parents, NY and New England Jewish. Dad insisted we attend a concert of a men's choir in a Welsh church, a memorable event.
Siwsan
(26,251 posts)It is a country full of music, poetry and legend. I take such great pride in my Welsh heritage.
CTyankee
(63,892 posts)I'm a Scot from the other side (Campbell).
Siwsan
(26,251 posts)I've even taken a boat trip out on to Loch Ness and done a 'Ghoulie and Ghostie' walk in Edinburgh.
It's funny because people seem to think that the Scots are a very dour group of people, but I found them to be amazingly warm, friendly and hospitable.
PJMcK
(21,998 posts)Thanks for posting it, elleng.
Here's a link to a musical setting by the American composer, John Corigliano:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Fern+Hill+John+Corigliano&view=detail&mid=4B31798CA304701BF7484B31798CA304701BF748&FORM=VIRE
Enjoy!