The Poems of Dylan Thomas (New Directions Book) [Hardcover]

Dylan Thomas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1971 | Series: New Directions Book

The most complete edition of the works of one of the twentieth century's greatest poets, including an audio CD containing vintage recordings of Thomas reading eight of his poems.

This new, revised edition of The Poems of Dylan Thomas is based on the collection edited by Thomas's life-long friend and fellow poet, Daniel Jones, first published by New Directions in 1971. Jones started with the ninety poems Thomas selected for his Collected Poems in 1952 (at a time when the poet expected that many years of work still lay ahead of him) and, after exhaustive research and consideration, added one hundred previously finished, though uncollected, poems (including twenty-six juvenile works), and two unfinished poems, and arranged them all in chronological order of composition, creating the most complete edition of Thomas's poems ever published. This revised edition contains all the original material and incorporates textual corrections. Also included are an introduction and concise notes by Daniel Jones, a brief chronology of the poet's life, and a compact disc containing vintage recordings of Thomas reading eight of his poems in his famous "Welsh-singing" style, making this edition of The Poems of Dylan Thomas a truly remarkable collection.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Admit The Sun
The Air You Breathe
All All And All The Dry Worlds Lever
All That I Owe The Fellows Of The Grave
The Almanac Of Time
Altarwise By Owl-light
Although Through My Bewildered Way
Among Those Killed In The Dawn Raid Was A Man Aged A Hundred
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
Ballad Of The Long-legged Bait
Because The Pleasure-bird Whistles
Before I Knocked
Before The Gas Fades
Before We Mothernaked Fall
Being But Men
Cabaret
Ceremony After A Fire Raid
Children Of Darkness Got No Wings
Cloud In The Moon
Conceive These Images In Air
The Conversation Of Prayer
Cool, Oh No Cool
The Countryman's Return
Deaths And Entrances
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Do You Not Father Me
Ears In The Turrets Hear
Elegy
The Elm
Especially When The October Wind
Fern Hill
'find Meat On Bones'
The Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower
Forest Picture
Foster The Light
From Love's First Fever To Her Plague
The Gossipers
Greek Play In A Garden
A Grief Ago
Grief Thief Of Time
Here In This Spring
Here Lies The Beasts
High On A Hill
Hold Hard, These Ancient Minutes In The Cuckoo's Month
Holy Spring
How Shall My Animal
How Soon The Servant Sun
The Hunchback In The Park
I Dreamed My Genesis
I Fellowed Sleep
I Have Come To Catch Your Voice
I Have Longed To Move Away
I Know This Vicious Minute's Hour
I See The Boys Of Summer
I, In My Intricate Image
I, The First Named
Idyll Of Unforgetfulness
If I Were Tickled By The Rub Of Love
If My Head Hurt A Hair's Foot
In Country Heaven
In Country Sleep
In Dreams
In Memory Of Ann Jones
In My Craft Or Sullen Art
In The Beginning
In The White Giant's Thigh
Incarnate Devil
Into Her Lying Down Head
It Is The Sinners' Dust-tongued Bell
It's Light That Makes The Intervals
It's Not In Misery But In Oblivion
Lament
Last Night I Dived My Beggar Arm
Let For One Moment A Faith Statement
Let It Be Known
Let Me Escape
A Letter To My Aunt Discussing The Correct Approach To
Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed
Lift Up Your Face
Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines
Light, I Know, Treads The Ten Million Stars
Little Problem
Love In The Asylum
The Midnight Road
Missing
The Molls
The Morning, Space For Leda
My Hero Bares His Nerves
My River
My World Is Pyramid
The Natural Day And Night
Nearly Summer
The Neophyte, Baptized In Smiles
Never To Reach The Oblivious Dark
New Quay
No Man Believes
No Thought Can Trouble My Unwholesome Pose
No, Pigeon, I'm Too Wise
Not Foever Shall The Lord Of The Red Hail
Not From This Anger
Now
Now The Thirst Parches Lip And Tongue
O Chatterton
O Make Me A Mask
The Oak
Of Any Flower
On A Wedding Anniversary
On The Marriage Of A Virgin
Once Below A Time
Once It Was The Colour Of Saying
Our Eunuch Dreams
Out Of The Pit
Out Of The Sighs
Over Sir John's Hill
Paper And Sticks
Pillar Breaks
The Pine
The Ploughman's Gone
Poem
Poem
Poem For Caitlin
Poem In October
Poem On His Birthday
Poet: 1935
Praise To The Architects
A Process In The Weather Of The Heart
Prologue
Rain Cuts The Place We Tread,
A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London
Request To Leda
The Rod Can Lift Its Twining Head
A Saint About To Fall
See, Says The Lime
The Seed-at-zero
Shall Gods Be Said To Thump The Clouds
Should Lanterns Shine
Since, On A Quiet Night
Sometimes The Sky's Too Bright
Song
The Song Of The Mischievous Dog
The Spire Cranes
The Sun Burns The Morning
Take The Needles And The Knives
Their Faces Shone Under Some Radiance
Then Was My Neophyte
There Was A Saviour
There's Plenty In The World
They Are The Only Dead Who Did Not Love
This Bread I Break
This Side Of The Truth
Through These Lashed Rings
Time Enough To Rot
To A Slender Wind
To Be Encompassed By The Brilliant Earth
To Follow The Fox
To Others Than You
To The Spring-spirit
Today, This Insect
The Tombsone Told When She Died
Too Long, Skeleton
Triloet
Twelve
Twenty-four Years Remind The Tears Of My Eyes
Unluckily For A Death
Upon Your Held-out Hand
Vision And Prayer
Walking In The Gardens
Was There A Time
We Have The Fairy Tales By Heart
We Lying By Seasand
We See Rise The Secret Wind
'we Who Are Young Are Old'
We Will Be Conscious Of Our Sanctity
When All My Five And Country Senses See
When I Woke
When Once The Twilight Locks No Longer
When You Have Ground Such Beauty Down To Dust
When Your Furious Motion
When, Like A Running Grave
Where Once The Waters Of Your Face
Why East Wind Chills
A Winter's Tale
With Windmills Turning Wrong Directions
Woman On Tapestry
The Woman Speaks
Written For A Personal Epitaph
You Are The Ruler Of This Realm Of Flesh
Your Pain Shall Be A Music
Youth Calls To Age
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

About the Author

The reputation of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) as one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century has not waned in the fifty years since his death. His work, noted for its lush metaphors, musicality, and playfulness within traditional forms, was largely responsible for modernizing poetic verse. Thomas also wrote captivating short stories, a novella, several screenplays and radio plays, as well as his delightful stage play, Under Milk Wood—all infused with his passion for the English language and his enduring love of Wales. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; Rev edition (June 1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811203980
• ISBN-13: 978-0811203982
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #793,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Will you like Dylan Thomas?, December 9, 2003

By 

"brianmclean" (Budapest, Hungary) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Poems of Dylan Thomas, New Revised Edition [with CD] (Hardcover)

Certainly, if you like poetry at all. Open the book at random and start listening to the sound as you read. OK---in my case, it's fallen open at this:
Shall gods be said to thump the clouds
When clouds are cursed by thunder,
Be said to weep when weather howls?
Shall rainbows be their tunics' colour?
So on one level, this is poetry for mouthing and savouring and enjoying like music. Technically, it's tight as a drum. See how the vowels are juxtaposed and notice the assonance and shape-rhymes at the end of the lines. Then comes the meaning. Dylan Thomas is not the simplest poet to understand, but he always has a strong, strident, moving argument to make that you can't forget, even if you don't agree. This edition includes recordings of the poet reading some of the verses in his strangely old-fashioned, but unforgettable voice. I first met Dylan Thomas's poems when I was 14, at a stormy, angry, poetry-writing age. That's a good moment to encounter a great poet and find out what else can be said and considered and felt. If it's Dylan Thomas, there's a strong chance he'll stay with you for the rest of your life. This is a book to leave around casually for others to find, especially if they're at a stormy, angry, poetry-writing age. If only more of us were, more of the time.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars dylan thomas is one of my favorite poet, April 20, 2001

By 

[e-mail] "[e-mail]" (Beaumont, tx USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Poems of Dylan Thomas (New Directions Book) (Hardcover)

Years ago i read "do not go gentle into that good night" and i was introduced to dylan thomas. i quickly went out and bought his collected poems, and was totally enraptured by the poet. he has stayed on the top of my favorites, even as i read more and more poetry. this collection is not a complete works. it contains what Daniel Jones (a friend of DT's) selected out of thomas' works. the collected poems and about 100 other poems, one additional incomplete poem, and 26 poems from DT's juvenalia. it's a good collection, but you can see why dylan thomas did not include these extra poems in his collected poems. they aren't as great as what he can produce. if you love dylan thomas, like i do, then this is a great book to buy, otherwise, you can just stick with the collected poems (those poems were selected by DT himself, as the work he wanted to "save").

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Definitive Anthology Of His Poetry, March 5, 2007

By 

Carlos Rodriguez - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Poems of Dylan Thomas, New Revised Edition [with CD] (Hardcover)

If you truly are a lover of great poetry than this book should be very satisfying. Over the years there have been several volumes that have tried to attempt to collect some of the best poems by Dylan Thomas but none has come close to how complete and accurate this book is. THE POEMS OF DYLAN THOMAS, collects practically every poem that he ever wrote during his lifetime. All of his greatest and best loved poems are here and an added bonus is the CD in the back flap of the book(a special treat by all means) which has the acclaimed poet reciting eight short poems which are also included in the book. Dylan Thomas only lived to the age of 39, but in his brief run here on planet earth he wrote some of the finest, romantic and beautiful poems of his generation. Poetry scholars and literary historians have called him the greatest poet of the 20th century and although there have been many great poets (too many to mention) he stands as one of the most well known and best loved poetic geniuses of all times. Great book of poems that I highly recommend for anyone that has ever been moved and stimulated by the beauty and euphoria that poetry like the ones contained in this beautiful book can bring to a person's soul.