Image of his boathouse in Laugharne, SW Wales, a sanctuary where he wrote much of his work.

Poet, playwright, story-teller (DT) 1914-1953. Born in Swansea, South Wales. Died in a New York hospital of a serious case of pneumonia that the doctor ignored. He had been undertaking a reading tour in the US.

Words in inverted commas (in stanza 1,2 and 10) from his poem "Fern Hill," written in 1945, reminiscing about joyful childhood ("Though I sang in my chains like the sea.") "Rage" in stanza 6 - from "Do not go gentle into that good night" - written 1947 (see below for detail).

Stanza 2 - "....my love for the real life of words increased until I knew that I must live with them and in them, always. I knew, in fact, that I must be a writer of words and nothing else."

Stanza 3 - "My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out."

Stanza 4 - "The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes and before I could read them for myself, I had come to love just the words of them, the words alone."

Stanza 6 - "Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light" Actually written for his father who was going blind but also interpreted as a call for him to challenge death. Notably, however, 'night' is not loaded with negativity .

Stanza 7 & 8 - "I have never sat down and studied the Bible..." "All of the Bible that I use in my work is remembered from childhood and is the common property of all who were brought up in English-speaking communities."
"These poems, with all their crudities, doubts and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God and I'd be a damn fool if they weren't."

Stanza 9 - "An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you."

Stanza 10 - "Whatever talents I possess may suddenly diminish or suddenly increase. I can with ease become an ordinary fool. I may be one now. But it doesn't do to upset one's own vanity."

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