An American love affair
THINK IT REALLY HELPS TO GO TO THE ORIGINAL WEB PAGE FOR THIS--
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zc9ccdm
For a poet whose work is so closely
identified with provincial Wales, Dylan Thomas has a surprisingly high
profile across America – where he is arguably more celebrated than in
the UK.
Thomas was born in Swansea in October 1914. Though
he travelled frequently to London to work, for him the chance to visit
America represented a long held dream. As a lover of cinema and American
poetry, Thomas viewed the USA as a promised land where he believed he
could make a living to support his family.
He had to wait until the last years of his life to
cross the Pond, fitting in four tours between 1950 and November 1953. To
understand the foundations of his legacy in America, we have to explore
the work he did there and his death in New York.
Why did Dylan Thomas go to America?
Dylan Thomas was a lifelong fan of cinema,
and this love of movies and pulp fiction gangster novels made America a
dream destination for him.
It has been suggested that Thomas was following in
the footsteps of one of his own greatest literary heroes – Charles
Dickens – who had undertaken a series of celebrated reading tours of
America.
However, the main reason for embarking on his
reading and lecture tours of America was because of a dire need for
money. Throughout his brief life he was always short of money, but by
the early 1950s, with a wife and three children to support and no proper
job, things were getting desperate.
Thomas already had a US following and a publisher,
New Directions Press. His first American book, The World I Breathe, was
published in 1939. Dylan wrote that he would like to visit the States as
early as 1945, and his yearning for America grew steadily.
But it was to be another five years and the
intercession of long-time admirer John Malcolm Brinnin that finally got
Thomas across the Pond. When Brinnin became the director of the Young
Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association Poetry Centre, known today as
the 92nd Street Y, one of the first things he did was to invite Thomas
to read there.
Thomas responded with great enthusiasm. Brinnin
inadvertently became his US agent and tour manager, and thus on 20
February 1950 the Welshman flew to America on what was to be the first
of four visits.
His American tours
Dylan
Thomas visited America on four occasions during the 1950s, giving talks
and poetry readings at numerous colleges and universities plus
performances of Under Milk Wood on the latter tours.
His
tours across America made him an iconic figure on college campuses and
the developing Beat poets and writers, such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack
Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso, saw him as a hero and
inspiration.
The Caedmon connection
It is clear that during these tours his voice and
performance was as much of a draw as his writing. This led to Thomas
inadvertently kickstarting the audiobook industry.
In 1952, after hearing him at a reading, the
fledging Caedmon Records asked Thomas to make a recording for them.
Thomas turned up with insufficient material to fill both sides of an LP
record.
When asked what else he could read, Thomas
remembered that he had sold a short story, A Child's Christmas in Wales,
to the US magazine Harper's Bazaar in 1950. An edition of the magazine
was hurriedly found by the record label's owners and Thomas narrated
that in the studio.
The recording became one of Caedmon's most
successful releases. Thomas was their first and best-selling 'voice'. By
1962, 400,000 Dylan Thomas LPs had been sold. It helped to cement his
place in American history.
It was only following the success of the audio
recording that the short story was published as a book, by Thomas's
American publishers New Dimensions in 1954. It remains one of Thomas's
most loved works, not just in America, but worldwide.
Under Milk Wood premiere
The premiere of Under Milk Wood, probably
Dylan Thomas's best known work, actually took place in America.
It was first performed on stage on 14 May 1953 at
Brinnin's Poetry Centre in New York. Dylan Thomas played the roles of
First Voice and the Reverend Eli Jenkins among others, while five young
American actors voiced the rest of the many roles.
It was never planned that Under Milk Wood should
have its premiere performance in New York. It was more a case of
chronological happen-chance, a 'right place right time' scenario.
Under Milk Wood had a long and sometimes tortured
gestation. The BBC had commissioned the radio play from Thomas in late
1950, and it is likely that he had written about half of the play by the
autumn of 1951. After a suggestion by Malcolm Brinnin the following
year, Thomas agreed to have the script finished in time for his third US
tour, where it could be performed at the Poetry Centre.
Thomas arrived in America on 21 April 1953 for the
tour. The manuscript was still unfinished on his arrival, but he
completed the draft just hours before the performance. The actors were
handed amended scripts – with unseen passages – shortly before they went
on stage.
A recording of this production, again made by
Caedmon, is the only existing audio of Thomas performing his famous
work.
Death in New York
Dylan Thomas died in New York City in 1953
very publicly, and he took a torturous few days over it. He was just 39,
and his death was reported across the States in every newspaper.
Due to his unexpected and premature death there,
America will always be able to hold a claim over the Welsh writer. Four
days after his death in the city, New York held a memorial service at
the Church of St Luke's in the Field, which was attended by around 400
people.
Many of Thomas’s manuscripts, books and other
memorabilia are housed in many US institutions. These include the
University of Texas, Houston; the New York Public Library; the Morgan
Library in New York; Harvard Library and the Library of Congress in
Washington DC.
There is a dedicated Dylan Thomas walking tour of
Greenwich Village that stops by some of the most famous locations
associated with the writer. These include Patchin Place, where Dylan
would visit the poet EE Cummings, and old haunts such as the Minetta
Tavern and the White Horse Tavern.
During his tours, and through his writing, Thomas
gave Americans a taste of Wales that they are still keen to sample today
– a number of tour operators still organise specialised Dylan Thomas
trips for American tourists.
On a presidential visit to Britain, Jimmy Carter was
surprised to find that Dylan Thomas had not been honoured in Poets'
Corner in Westminster Abbey, and lent his support to the successful bid
to get him recognised.
InternalDid medical neglect kill Dylan Thomas?Why the enduring legacy?
Dylan
Thomas is still held in high regard in the USA decades after his death.
What do you think is the most important factor behind his enduring
popularity?
Under Milk Wood premiere
A Child's Christmas in Wales
The notorious lifestyle
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment-- or suggestions, particularly of topics and places you'd like to see covered