''18 Poems'' is a book of poetry written by the Welsh poet
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under ...
, published in 1934 as the winner of a contest sponsored by ''
Sunday Referee
The ''Sunday Referee'' was a Sunday newspaper in the United Kingdom, founded in 1877 as ''The Referee'', primarily covering sports news.
In the 1930s, considerable money was invested in an attempt to compete with the leading Sunday newspapers, an ...
''. His first book, ''18 Poems'', introduced Thomas's new and distinctive style of poetry. This was characterised by tightly metered, rhyming verse and an impassioned tone. Written in his "womb- tomb period", the poems explore dark themes of love, death and birth, employing a rich combination of sexual connotations and religious symbolism. The lyricism and intensity of the poems in the book contrasted with the emotional restraint shown in the poetry of the successful modernist poets that worked as his contemporaries. The book received critical acclaim, but was not initially commercially successful.
The poem, ''The force that through the green fuse drives the flower'', is known as the poem that "made Thomas famous", and also appears in the book. The poems are considered by many to be evocative but difficult to understand. Critic and contemporary of Thomas,
Geoffrey Grigson, said that, regarding the influence of prominent poets on Thomas, the young poet was "untainted with
Eliot or with
Auden . . . whose poems, though a bit unintelligible, sounded at least familiar in an old grandiloquent way."
The poems in ''18 poems'' are untitled and are often referred to by their first lines.
Contents
I see the boys of summer
Where once the twilight locks
A process in the weather of the heart
Before I knocked
The force that through the green fuse
My hero bares his nerves
Where once the waters of your face
If I were tickled by the rub of love
Our eunuch dreams
Especially when the October wind
When, like a running grave
From love's first fever
In the beginning
Light breaks where no sun shines
I fellowed sleep
I dreamed my genesis
My world is pyramid
All all and all
Influences
*
William Blake
References
1934 poetry books
British poetry collections
Poetry by Dylan Thomas
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