Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas was a born rebel with a poets mind. He was born in Whales in 1914. he was a neurotic, sickly child who shied away from school and preferred reading on his own, he read a lot of poetry from famous poets. He was inspired by D. H. Lawrence’s descriptions of the vivid natural world. He loved the language and excelled in his English and reading but neglected other subjects and dropped out of school at 16. His first book was “Eighteen Poems” when he was twenty. His writing has a lot of lyrics and powerful emotions changed into it; he is more on the romantic tradition. Thomas was the typical Romantic poet of the American generation. He was flamboyantly theatrical, a heavy drinker, engaged in roaring disputes in public, and read his work aloud with tremendous depth of feeling. He became a legendary figure, both for his work and the boisterousness of his life. He died from alcoholism at the age of 39 after a particularly long drinking in New York City in 1953.
My Hero Bares His Nerves
By Dylan Thomas
My hero bares his nerves along my wrist
That rules from wrist to shoulder,
Unpacks the head that, like a sleepy ghost,
Leans on my mortal ruler,
The proud spine spurning turn and twist.
And these poor nerves so wired to the skull
Ache on the lovelorn paper
I hug to love with my unruly scrawl
That utters all love hunger
And tells the page the empty ill.
My hero bares my side and sees his heart
Tread, like a naked Venus,
The beach of flesh, and wind her bloodred plait;
Stripping my loin of promise,
He promises a secret heat.
He holds the wire from the box of nerves
Praising the mortal error
Of birth and death, the two sad knaves of thieves,
And the hunger’s emperor;
He pulls the chain, the cistern moves.
I hope in the poem above he was describing about the nerves in his body. I thought that the way he was describing his nerves were very imaginative and colour. I liked the way he told the journey of how his nerves travel around his body. I really like his choice of words. What I didn’t like was that it was kind of confusing in some parts I’m not sure if that’s the poem or it’s just me that is unable to understand the full potential of the poem.
I just can’t think of any questions to questions this poem. It’s like a poem like this was built to have no questions attached to it. You’re supposed to read it and be amazed by it and not ponder about it. Its simplicity is not to be questioned.
Figurative language
Dylan Thomas says:
And these poor nerves so wired to the skull
Ache on the lovelorn paper
I hug to love with my unruly scrawl
That utters all love hunger
And tells the page the empty ill.
In this whole stanza the author was giving the paper actions and life,
a personification.
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