Quite Early One Morning Broadcasts By Dylan Thomas Preface By Aneirin Talfan Davies

A book full of surprises and delights, On the Air with Dylan Thomas presents all of Thomas's BBC radio work (with the exception of "Under Milk Wood", which is available separately). Thomas served his broadcasting apprenticeship as a teenager with his friend Daniel Jones. They set up a "station" between the second and first floors of the Jones' home "Warmley," dubbing it the Warmley Broadcasting Company. Then, starting in 1943 and continuing to his death, Thomas often sat behind a BBC microphone, variously giving radio talks, introducing poetry selections, participating in round-table discussions, reading dramas, essays, and poems. His was a glorious voice and he had a special case and inventiveness on the air.

A collection of essays on Dylan Thomas, reading culture and his place in modernist studiesReclining quietly with a book; an ear glued to the Hi-Fi; sifting a library stack; the TV flickering; a website gone live Few poets have inspired such remarkable scenes and modes of interpretation as Dylan Thomas. Our means of access and response to his work have never been more eclectic, and this collection sheds new light on what it means to 'read' such a various art. In thinking beyond the parameters of life writing and lingering interpretative communities, Reading Dylan Thomas attends in detail to the problems and pleasures of deciphering Thomas in the twenty-first century, teasing out his debts and effects, tracing his influence on later artists, and suggesting ways to understand his own idiosyncratic reading practices. From short stories to memoirs, poems to broadcasts, letters to films, manuscripts to paintings, the material considered in this volume lays the ground for a new consideration of Thomas's formal versatility, and his distinctive relation to literary modernism. Key FeaturesEvaluates the breadth of Thomas's creative practice, from short stories to memoirs, poems to broadcasts, letters to films, manuscripts to paintingsDraws on recently discovered manuscripts and archival material in Britain and North AmericaA distinctive combination of cultural history, close reading, and critical theory

The definitive biography of the poet who was almost as notorious for his 'rock 'n' roll' lifestyle as his artistic work Dylan Thomas was a romantic and controversial figure; a poet who lived to excess and died young. An inventive genius with a gift for both lyrical phrases and impish humour, he also wrote for films and radio, and was renowned for his stage performances. He became the first literary star in the age of popular culture - a favourite of both T.S. Eliot and John Lennon. As his status as a poet and entertainer increased, so did his alcoholic binges and his sexual promiscuity, threatening to destroy his marriage to his fiery Irish wife Caitlin. As this extraordinary biography reveals, he was a man of many contradictions. But out of his tempestuous life, he produced some of the most dramatic and enduring poetry in the English language.

A short critical study analyzing the achievement of Dylan Thomas in terms of its Welsh cultural background and its international impact on 20th century poetry. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR