Dylan Thomas

I have mixed feelings about Dylan Thomas. There were poems that I enjoyed, and there were poems that I did not particularly like. The poems that I enjoyed are the poems that I could understand. Some of his work was so confusing that I could not make any sense of it. The two poems that stood out to me are “Fern Hill” and “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” seemed very much self-explanatory. In the first stanza, he is telling his father to stay energetic and hold on to life. The next four stanzas describe different types of men who are trying to hold on to their lives. In the final stanza, he tells his father to be the fierce man that he once was. He does not seem ready to loose his father into the good night.

In “Fern Hill,” the speaker is a man who is looking back on his childhood. In the first stanza, he has control over his environment and easily moves as if he owns everything. As a child he did not seem to understand the meaning of time and how time passes. He reminisces on all the good memories of his childhood. Although time will eventually run out, he will always have these beautiful memories as a child.

Most of the other poems are depressing. “The Hunchback in the Park” is a poem about all the pain and suffering of a hunchback. “Twenty-Four Years” is another depressing poem. There is not one uplifting poem that we have read from Thomas. Thomas uses a lot of repetition throughout his poetry. I have noticed that the first lines of the majority of his poems start with the title. This was very monotonous. I’m sure he could have come up with more creative titles.