He early conceived the vocation of poet, as others conceive a religious vocation. At 13, he published a poem in a South Wales newspaper, though (as was later discovered) it was pure plagiarism. Yet Thomas soon thought of himself, and referred to himself, as the Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive, a part he played for the rest of his life: and when you play a part long enough, it becomes what you actually are—in this case, the poète maudit. His wife once said that he worked hard at his image; and in the end, the image was the man and it killed him. The alcohol consumption and the death were all too real, even if he drank partly to create the impression of himself that he wanted to convey, both to himself and, more important, to others.
For a long time, Dylan Thomas was as famous for his life as for his works; his roistering, drunken, undisciplined existence exerted an attraction for people chained by circumstance or cowardice to the humdrum world of getting and spending. That Thomas for much of his short life received an income from his writing that would have been adequate for comfort, if only he spent it wisely; that he never took buses but only taxis, even when broke and even for long distances and at immense expense; that he sent his son to be privately educated—none of this was widely known, for poverty as a consequence of his principled determination to live as a poet was more appropriate to the legend he created and lived.
CONNECT
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