Professor David Peimer
Dylan Thomas: Great Poet or Overrated Alcoholic Wordsmith ?

Professor David Peimer - Dylan Thomas: Great Poet or Overrated Alcoholic Wordsmith?

- Okay, so thanks again so much, Judy, and hi to everybody. Hope everybody’s well everywhere. And so today, we’re going to dive into, for me, the magical, off the wall, maybe a little bit nuts, but quite fantastic, Dylan Thomas. And I want to dive into a couple of his main poems and also show some, there’s some BBC recordings from the 1940s of Dylan Thomas reading some of his poems, and I think we get a very different sense when he reads them. And then Richard Burton reading a little bit of “Under Milk Wood,” and Derek Jacobi reading another one of his poems. So it’s going to just play around a little bit with some of the main poems that he’s so well known for within the overall provocative title of, you know, was he merely an alcoholic wordsmith or a fantastic poet? And I’m going to, I want to debate this a little bit, and then I want to suggest strongly that I think he’s fantastic and I want to suggest why, and open for everybody to agree or disagree. You be the judge. Okay, so first of all, Dylan Thomas, I mean, we can see that he had such a short life, as we all know, dying in his late thirties, and in such a short life, packing so much in, and why is he regarded, on the one hand as populist, but not quite a major poet, certainly in the English language or in academia, compared to T.S. Eliot, or W.H. Auden, or a whole lot of the others of the 20th century. And why is there this a little bit old, but nevertheless, prevalent scholarly debate. And also, what do we just feel when we read this guy’s poetry or listen to him read his own work? He died at 39, he was hugely popular in New York City. And yes, he was an alcoholic, as we all know, drinking far too much, and died of complications of alcoholism and other things. So he’s widely popular in his own time, and has remained hugely popular, not only in in his native Wales or in the UK, but I would suggest globally.

And why? Obviously, he was seen as this young doomed poet who was destined to die young, like almost the rock and roll stars to come. Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, so many others, not only, the actors, James Dean. So he’s born, let’s go back to the beginning. He’s born in Swansea in Wales, 1931, and when he was 16, he left school. Now that’s I think, a huge important difference to the W.H. Audens, T.S. Eliots, and the other equally magnificent poets, but a very different trajectory they followed. He leaves school at the age of 16. He became a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post. He was the son, his mother was a seamstress, and his father, a teacher of English literature, he, I think one of the most wonderful memories that he had was of Fern Hill. And we all know the poem, “Fern Hill.” And Fern Hill was a dilapidated 15-acre farm, which his maternal aunt owned and helped run. He was very loved by his mother. Some would suggest mollycoddled, whatever, indulged. That’s all up to very subjective discussion. He described his experiences on the farm of the aunt in his reminiscences of childhood. And he spoke about writing a poem as a sculptor works at stone. Pardon me, initially, he is very popular, even with T.S. Eliot, and the critic and poet Steven Spender, and one critic at the time wrote about Dylan Thomas. He said he was, and I’m quoting, “He was the sort of bomb that bursts no more than for a couple of years, and then is gone.” So it’s this idea of this meteor of a poet, but like Keats and maybe others who just burst and then they die tragically so young. He married Caitlin Macnamara, who was a dancer of Irish and French descent.

And she had run away from home to follow her passion to be a dancer. And when he was completely drunk, apparently, according to her, Dylan Thomas proposed. So this theme of drinking, obviously, as we all know, follows all the way through his life. And he performed his poetry so often, travelled in America a lot, performing his poetry, he travelled in the UK performing, he’s one of the very first to actually perform his poetry, not only write, but you know, grab the audiences. And this follows going way back to Dickens of the 19th century, reading his stories or extracts from his stories and being hugely popular travelling in America as well, and earning plenty money. So Dickens in a way, and others begin that in the 19th century, and Dylan Thomas follows it. So it’s almost this idea of the rockstar poet, or rockstar writer if we like, or celebrity. But Dickens’ case of that century, the 19th century, and Dylan Thomas starting it, you know, in closer to our times. He met the composer, Stravinsky, and W.H. Auden, and Auden was very positive, praising of Dylan Thomas. Stravinsky composed, “In Memoriam Dylan Thomas” for tenor, string quartet, and four trombones. So Stravinsky, these other artists are aware just of how good and interesting this guy is, and his poetry. So, but I do, but we have to link that with the drunkenness. And I’m going to suggest why. His wife, Caitlin, wrote, and I’m quoting, “Ours was not only a love story, it was a drink story. The bar was our altar.” So in the very personal marriage relationship, you know, it’s not just a love story, it was, the altar was the bar. So it’s, everything is true, it’s not just mythical exaggeration.

Now what’s interesting is that he refused to align himself with any literary group or movement, which is one thing. The next thing is that he doesn’t go to university. And I do think this is huge. Because as I said, Eliot and so many of the others have gone to university, have a very different nuanced, sophisticated education. they learn the great tradition through university, of English and European certainly, and some American and other literatures, they are studying it all. They’re learning it, they’re incorporating references all the way of, you know, “The Waste Land” is so many references to so many other poems in in the English language, Dylan Thomas is more, the Bible, Welsh folklore, preachers, the way local people would talk in small Welsh villages and Welsh towns of the times. So the attempts by scholars to pigeonhole him becomes, in the word of one critic, unclassifiable. And in the post-modern age, there’s almost a demand to have a social reference. You know, what’s he writing about social justice issues, of inequality, of fascism, the war, other things. You know, he’s not obsessed with these things, so they can’t pigeonhole him as a certain poet of a certain kind. I think that’s on the one hand, which is why critics are hesitant to put him in, you know, sort of, if you like, the tradition of great poets of the English language. The second, and I do think it’s still relevant today, is that he doesn’t have university education. He leaves school when he is 16. And you know, Shakespeare didn’t go to university. One of the great short story writers that I grew up with, Herman Charles Bosman in South Africa, fantastic short stories, also you know, there’s so many who write about small towns, small villages, people here, people there, the ordinariness of everyday life, which they make extraordinary through their poetry.

And he writes about his family, he writes about, not only Welsh people, but people and in their daily comings and goings, their daily human foibles, their dreams, their disappointed or lost dreams. You know, he can somehow get right inside. The other thing about him is that I think he’s more, he writes like an impressionist painter. He’s not interested in the deep inner life or psychology of characters. He writes more like, or even in the poems, it’s more like an impression, you know, it’s like an impression painter, it’s an impression of something, and then he leaves so much room for the reader or the listener to gain through that. So all of these things make him, in the words of his critic, unclassifiable, that, together with the lack of university education, I think is part of why he’s seen as this populist poet, but they can’t quite pigeonhole. And it remains today, you know, whether it’s Bob Dylan, or whether it’s even Leonard Cohen or many, many others. Why this divide, between the more highly educated university poets or not. You know, the more intellectual university poets or not. And it was discussed in his own life, you know, and a false debate was set up between, you know, W.H. Auden and himself. And I think both are brilliant and both contribute for me, you know, the more intellectual, the more emotional intuitive, if you like. They both contribute to the extraordinary treasure chest called, you know, poetry written in the English language. Why not? His obvious influence is of James Joyce’s stream of consciousness. And that’s very evident in “Under Milk Wood.” But it also belies, and the same with Joyce, it belies the enormous amount of drafting and redrafting that we know he did. And we know it because we’ve got evidence, you know, of of all the papers and in the letters and the constant reworking of almost, you know, every word, every phrase. Because I guess the last thing about him is that he’s a lover of words, and words creating music, words that dance on the page to burn into the human imagination of the reader or the listener, and I don’t think we can underestimate it.

And of course the ultimate, which so many of them are influenced by, is Rimbaud, you know, the great French poet, and Bob Dylan is hugely influenced by Rimbaud and many others. So, you know, which became known as the surrealist poetry, Rimbaud’s poem, “The Drunken Boat,” obviously a big example, but many others of his works. So all of this combines with imagery, language, which is played with, it’s language which, you know, to quote Shakespeare, “Must come tripping me from the tongue almost, but the craft to get there.” The wonderful poet who, I’m sure many have heard of and know, Roy Campbell, coined the phrase, ‘cause he was very friendly with Dylan Thomas, and he called him, “Swansea’s Rimbaud.” So the link with Wales and Rimbaud became known as the surrealist poet from France. And I think that’s true, I think Roy Campbell’s right, those influences. And he also talks about in his own letters, Dylan Thomas, the influence of his, that his parents taught him. Childhood rhymes, Mother Goose, you know, so many of them. And let’s be honest, when we remember growing up, we remember those as well. And why not? You know, which is more, which is less on the spectrum of populist to non-populist, I’m going to call it, I’m not going to call it elitist, that’s far too simplistic, and I think naive a polemic, I think it’s much more interesting that he incorporates all the influences once he leaves school at the age of 16, and starts writing for himself. He wrote, Dylan Thomas wrote in a letter to a friend, “I wanted to write poetry because I fell in love with words. The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes, words, words, words.” And one does need to have a love of words, I think. And that is why they couldn’t pigeonhole him, the sort of social justice, or social, you know, important political theme poet as well.

And I’m not knocking those, 'cause they all add to the richness, the tapestry of poetry. And I think that, you know, poetry is an endless kaleidoscope of so many different kinds of genres, poets, approaches. Otherwise, it’d just be boring. It will be a, you know, copy of each other. So, but he was of obviously accused, you know, with the meaning of the words, where’s the meaning compared to the word? And that’s where he aligns himself with James Joyce, and so many of the other modernists. There’s one thing that does fit, of course, he’s modernist, which is obvious, you know, of his period. As I’ve said, this was debated a lot. And I think the other point is that his so-called drunken persona, which has created a mythology around his personality, which certainly hit many rockstars to come. and the nature of his early death, I think that that drunken persona has over-influenced the reception of his poetry. And the wonderful Irish poet, Seamus Heaney actually writes about that. And Heaney writes, and I’m quoting, “Dylan Thomas is now as much a case history as a chapter in the history of poetry.” So Seamus Heaney understands, you know, that this drunken persona and the poet, he’s as much one or the other, you know, and one can easily just jump on the bandwagon of the drunken persona and minimise the poetry, or even vice versa. So, the other criticism of him is that he’s far too extravagant with words at the price of meaning. Robert Lowell wrote, “Nothing could be more wrongheaded than the disputes about Dylan Thomas’s greatness. He is a dazzling, obscure writer who can be enjoyed without understanding.” We listened to Bob Dylan, “Desolation Row,” so many of the other wonderful poets, brilliant poets, Joyce and others, you know, they work through imagination, with language in a different way, like music. Philip Larkin, on the other hand, the great English poet, writing to the fantastic English novelist Kingsley Amis in 1948, he wrote, it’s interesting.

And I’m quoting, “No one can stick words into us like pins like Dylan Thomas can, but he doesn’t use his words to his advantage.” It’s interesting that his word, “No one can stick words into us like pins like Thomas, but he doesn’t use them to his advantage.” It’s an interesting take, Philip Larkin has, Kingsley Amis was much harsher, and he found little of merit in the work. And Kingsley Amis wrote, and I’m quoting, “That Dylan Thomas’s poetry is frothing at the mouth with being piss-drunk.” Make of it what you will. Okay, I want to give both sides of this debate. David Lodge, the wonderful more contemporary writer, “Dylan Thomas was made to stand for everything they detest. Verbal obscurity, metaphysical pretentiousness, and romantic rhapsodising.” And I think he captures something of the later generation of scholars, university scholars, anyway, and others towards his work. For me, he writes about what it is to be human. from his perception, obviously, and it’s his vision. His language is inventive. Yes, it’s stolen, but which poet doesn’t? He’s able to, and I think it’s a mark of intelligence, able to take something and remake it, remould it, find new connections of words and possible meanings, and I think that’s a mark of intelligence, you know, to take different things, find new connections, or find ways of connecting which are fresh, words, phrases, meanings, ideas, it’s inventive. And his prose, I think, is almost like a hawk eye, and there’s detail, there’s a ferocity, a fierceness, but also tenderness. And I think a fearlessness, and honesty, and a humour. He isn’t often on that many syllabi of universities, if you look around the world.

Again for I think a lot of these reasons, you know, that I’ve mentioned earlier, and I mentioned the contrast between W.H. Auden and Dylan Thomas. That was not set up by Auden, it was set up by scholars. Dylan Thomas has almost twice the number of millions of hits, if you like, on the internet as Auden, and many other poets in the English language. And there’s millions of them. If we want to do a little quick data analysis of using the internet. Anyway, he’s hugely popular. Seamus Heaney and others talk about the appeal to the ordinary people and the masses of the people, people’s poet almost, and why not? He is credited with kickstarting the audiobook industry. I’m going to play a couple of them in the moment. Sylvia Plath, Bob Dylan, so many others absolutely adored Dylan Thomas’s poetry. And I think we’ve got the gap between academia, pop culture, which is maybe part of the ongoing, heated debate of our own times. Okay, I want to start with the next slide please. This is where he lived for quite a part, a big part of his life. It’s on the beautiful part of the Welsh coast. It’s a bit of an idyllic picture, I know. And it’s blue skies, which is not particularly English, you know, especially today, grey. But it’s a stunning part. It’s just a bit wilder. And we get that feeling in his poetry. Can we go to the next slide, please? This is what’s known as the shed where he wrote in. It’s very tiny, you know, and there’s, you can see, is the shed that he writes in, I mean, not all his life, but he often, he wrote quite a lot here. Spend quite a bit of time. Okay, we’ve going to the next slide, please. Okay, so I want to play first, Dylan Thomas reading the great poem we all know only too well. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” This was a recording he made for the BBC.

• [Dylan] Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lightning, they do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight and learned too late, they grieved it on its way, do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight, blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

• Thanks. If we can hold it there, actually we can go to the next image. Thanks, so thanks, Judy. So this is not the reading of a drunken alcoholic alone. This is a controlled, to me, very sophisticated, subtle, calm, thoughtful reading of a young man in his early thirties, writing about his father’s dying, and about his own thoughts on death and time, and youth and age, you know, the eternal qualities that go to the heart of what it is to be absolutely human. And when we listen to him reading it himself, it’s not loud and raging, and out of control at all. It’s thought through, it’s quite calm. You can imagine him sitting very late at night, you know, as his father’s dying in the bed, maybe you know, a bit of light or even candles, whatever. And being with his father, going through that, and thinking of his father dying, but also thinking of, you know, life, death, human, how do we approach it? Do we go with resignation? Do we go with acceptance? Do we go with a quiet inner rage against the dying of the light or not? And how those words are so powerful and just burn into our imagination. And if he found the words, to me, this is not a drunken wordsmith alone at all. This is of a highly intelligent, sensitive, thinking poet, aware of how words and thoughts burn into the human imagination. So I want that because, and I wanted to start even though it, obviously, his most famous poem, but I want you to start with it because we get that feeling and when I heard this the first time, you know, I thought all these debates go out the window.

I just want to hear and read it for myself, the poem and listen to it, and put all the scholarly debates aside. “Old age should burn and rave at close of day.” It’s quietly, thoughtfully written and spoken. “The wise men at the end know, because their words had forked no lighting, they do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave, the last wave by, crying how bright they frail deeds might have danced in in a green bay.” It’s surrealist imagery, but it’s also then comes to, cuts in, “Rage, rage. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight.” You know, why have these words, they are so endless, one can read them again and again. Go on to the next slide, please. “Grave men near death who see with blinding sight,” I just want to move this here, at one second. Okay it’s, “Could blaze like meteors and be gay, and you, my father,” then he comes to the, you know, this is the part that comes so deeply personal in us. “You, my father there on the sad height, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray,” et cetera. So he pulls us from the big, right in we can imagine the father, instead of doing it the other way around. For me, it’s one of the most beautifully, sensitively, thoughtful poems. And in that way, it stimulates us to rage ourselves against the dying of the light. No matter how cruel and harsh the dying of the light might be. Okay, if we go on to the next slide, please. This is Dylan Thomas reading, “Fern Hill.”

CLIP BEGINS

• [Dylan] Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs about the lilting house and happy as the grass was green, the night above the dingle starry, time let me hail and climb golden in the heydays of his eyes, and honoured among waggons, I was prince of the apple towns, and once below a time, I lordly had the trees and leaves trail with daisies and barley down the rivers of the windfall light. And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns about the happy yard and singing as the farm was home in the sun that is young once only, time let me play and be, golden in the mercy of his means and green and golden, I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold, and the Sabbath rang slowly in the pebbles of the holy streams. All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air and playing lovely and watery, and fire green as grass.

And nightly under the simple stars, as I rode to sleep, the owls were bearing the farm away, all the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars flying with the ricks, and the horses flashing into the dark. And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white with the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder. It was all shining, it was Adam and maiden, the sky gathered again, and the sun grew round that very day. So it must have been after the birth of the simple light in the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm, out of the whinnying green stable, onto the fields of praise. And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house, under the new made clouds, and happy as the heart was long, in the sun, born over and over, I ran my heedless ways, my wishes raced through the house-high hay, and nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows in all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs before the children, green and golden, follow him out of grace. Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, in the moon that is always rising, nor that riding to sleep, I should hear him fly with the high fields and wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. Oh, as I was young and easy, in the mercy of his means, time held me green and dying, though I sang in my chains like the sea.

CLIP ENDS

• Thanks, Judy. If we can go on the next slide, please? Oh, let’s look at some of the words here. So for me, this poem, which was written, you know, “Fern Hill,” as I mentioned, was where his aunt had this 15 year old, 15 acre farm, dilapidated, but where he was the happiest, he said, in his childhood. And this again, this put the drunken persona, all those images out the window, put the populist poet even. It is such a feeling of control and calmness, and the way he reads it, I think, is stunning. He’s so aware of rhythm, and he’s so aware of words and how they fit together in a very contemporary, rhythmic way. It’s almost, it’s got a musical feel to it. He’s so aware of the obsession, which is I think, his main obsession is time. And isn’t time the gold in life? Time is the absolute gold, I think, in all of our lives, and we know it so, so well. Time is in so many of Shakespeare’s poems, so many of Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays. Sonnet 60 of Shakespeare is one of my favourite. It begins with, “Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end.” It’s all time, and what do we do with time? And in this poem, it’s the carefree youth, “Now I was young and easy under the apple boughs,” the carefreeness of youth, “Happy as the grass was green,” you know, “Time let me hail and climb golden in the heydays years of his eyes, I was green and carefree. The farm was home, the sun that is young once only.” Fantastic image.

“Time let me play.” So it’s not just a naive poem about a young guy running around a farm. It’s linked all the time to time. It’s time, and knowing, you know, the passage and what we are going to go through, obviously, birth to death, and all the changes of time in life, and what do we do with our time? Stephen Hawking said, you know, “No matter how hard life is,” and he certainly knew how hard it would be, in his life, “There’s always something you can succeed at.” Interesting line of Stephen Hawking. There’s always something you can succeed at no matter how hard life is, or cruel it is. And you know, he’s taking time and linking it to the carefreeness of youth. And I think this runs through all his poetry. There’s something carefree, there’s something but an obsession that time is moving. And what do we do as time moves on? If I may jump around a bit poetically today, John Lennon, “So this is Christmas and what have you done?” Another Christmas go, you know, coming, and so on. So it’s, you know. “And fire green as grass.” And yet every now and then throwing in this almost surrealist image, “Fire green as grass”? Which is Joyce’s influence and others, but he’s not obsessed with it. He’s obsessed with the ideas of time, youth, carefree, you know, when life is forever, and when dreams and hopes are forever. “Under Milk Wood” for me, is ultimately about dreams achieved and dreams lost, or dreams partially lived or unlived. You know it’s, he’s so aware of what we do with our time. Can we go to the next slide, please?

This is also from “Fern Hill.” I’m just, I’ve edited out some lines here for me, which stand out. “In time, that time allows in all his tuneful turning,” time has a tuneful turning, “And such morning songs before children green and golden, nothing I cared, in the lamb white days.” Obviously the, you know, days of being an innocent young child, lamb life. “That time would take me. Oh, I was young and easy in the mercy of his means time held me green and dying, though I sang in my chains like the sea.” What an amazing image to end up with, you know, and we can discuss what that might mean, you know, on and on, all day and night. “Though I sang, time held me green and dying, though I sang in my chains like the sea.” An extraordinary, as I said, ability to connect ideas and words that are previously disconnected. I think that to me, is such a mark of imaginative intelligence. Okay, if we can go onto the next slide, please? This is Dylan Thomas reading, “And Death Shall Have No Dominion.”

CLIP BEGINS

• [Derek] And death Shall have no dominion.

• Sorry, Derek Jacobi reading.

• [Derek] Dead man naked, they shall be one with a man in the wind and the west moon, when their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, they shall have stars at elbow and foot. Though they go mad, they shall be sane. Though they sink through the sea, they shall rise again. Though lovers be lost, love shall not. And death shall have no dominion. And death shall have no dominion. Under the windings of the sea. They lying long shall not die windily, twisting on racks when sinews give way strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break. Faith in their hands shall snap in two when the unicorn evils run them through, split all ends up, they shan’t crack, and death shall have no dominion. And death shall have no dominion. No more may gulls cry at their ears or waves break loud on the seashores, where blew a flower, may a flower no more lift its head to the blows of the rain, though they be mad and dead as nails, heads of the characters hammer through daisies, break in the sun till the sun breaks down, and death shall have no dominion.

CLIP ENDS

• Thanks Judy. If we can go to the next slide, please. So I’ve taken out some of the key phrases for me of the poem, “And Death Shall Have No Dominion.” What a phrase. It’s unforgettable once we read it once. He finds, with a lot amount of sweat and craft how to get that so we can never forget it. Not big words, just it’s, and it’s the rhythm of putting the words together, and that’s such a craft. “And death shall have no, and death shall have no dominion.” There’s a bit of iambic, but it’s, how memorable it becomes. “Dead men naked they shall be one with the man in the wind and the west moon, when their bones are picked clean and their clean bones gone,” he repeats and turns the phrase around, so we can’t forget, but we can’t pin it down to just one meaning. Death, time, you know, what’s the role of it in our fragile, you know, but strong human life. “They shall have stars at elbow and foot,” that combination, elbow and foot. I mean, what writer thinks of putting those kind of words together? “Though they go mad, they shall be sane.” And that’s a very fantastic, it’s a classic technique of rhetoric. And way back to Homer, the ancient Greeks and others, and the Romans, where you play with the epithet, “Though they sink through the sea, they shall rise again. Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and death shall have no dominion.” So it’s the repetition of, “Death shall have no dominion.” It’s the repetition of his way of playing with words. But to me, this is not just a wordsmith, this is not as as he was accused of, you know, well what’s he doing with the words? He’s brilliant with words and images and all that. But where’s the substance? To me, it’s all there. And it’s not so hard to dig it up, you know, or so complicated, and I can understand why he’s so popular amongst so many people, university educated or not, because anybody can respond to this and why not? Anybody can respond to, well, a lot, some of the songs of Bob Dylan, and many, many others.

We can see the influence on Bob Dylan. And not only obviously the name, but, and so many, many other writers of, you know, the second half of the 20th century into ours now. We cannot ignore this guy. He’s far too powerful and far too eminently unforgettable for me. You know, and as you can hear and feel that very passionately and strongly. Never underestimate the power of a phrase and words to simply, you know, find a way to lodge itself so fiercely in our own imagination, I think it is a remarkable achievement and not easy at all. Okay, again, it’s the obsession with time. And I think, you know, this is a poet writing in these times, the thirties, the forties, and he’s accused, why is he not writing about, you know, the terror and the grotesque evil and horror of the fascism of the times and the war? Why is he writing, you know, he’s finding the eternal themes in a way, in certainly the poems that I’ve chosen. Okay, and I think it doesn’t show it in ignorance or a lack of awareness of his own times that he’s living in historically, but it shows his obsessions, and why not? Can we not have poetry which can speak to many obsessions, you know, being human, and history, and culture, and times? Of course. Okay, can we go on to the next slide, please? This is him reading, “In My Craft Or Sullen Art.” It’s about his own art, which he recorded, BBC.

CLIP BEGINS

• [Dylan] In my craft or sullen art, exercised in the still night when only the moon rages and the lovers lie abed with all their griefs in their arms. I labour by singing light, not for ambition or bread, or the strut and trade of charms on the ivory stages, but for the common wages of their most secret heart. Not for the proud man apart from the raging moon, I write, on these spindrift pages, nor for the towering dead with their nightingales and psalms, but for the lovers, their arms round the griefs of the ages who pay no praise or wages nor heed my craft or art.

CLIP ENDS

• Thanks, Judy. If we can go on to the next slide, please. I want you to take out just a few of the key lines from the poem. Again, that same voice, controlled, calm, thoughtful, so aware of the musicality and rhythm of words and how they play together in our minds, you know, and it’s that link with the music all the time. “So who am I writing for in my craft or sullen art?” Again, it’s a phrase which just hits us and gets right into us, “Not for the proud man apart. Who am I writing for? On the raging moon, I write on the spindrift pages. I don’t write for the towering dead nightingales, psalms, but I write for lovers in their arms.” He’s a man in his thirties as well, but any age. “Round the griefs of the ages,” what a phrase. “The griefs of the ages.” That comes from a lot of sweat, and drafting, and redrafting that phrase, “Who pay no praise or wages nor heed my craft or art. That’s who I write for, the griefs of the ages who pay no praise or they don’t pay wages, nothing, they don’t even need my craft or art, but that’s who I’m writing for.” We can go on, please. Sorry if we can just hold it here for a moment, Judy? Thanks, so you know, what he’s really saying, is that he’s writing for the secret heart in the end, that, you know, what he ended up with when he read the poem there, it’s the secrets of the heart, and go right deep inside that. And I think that’s where, in this poem, which is about his own process of writing, he captures it. “I want to go deeper and deeper into the secret heart,” which I think is what “Under Milk Wood” does. Okay, I think if we can skip this one, 'cause I think this is “The poem for October,” and we can go onto the next slide please. Now this is Richard Burton reading, and I’m going to play the beginning minute or two of Richard Burton reading the beginning of “Under Milk Wood.” Thanks, we can play it.

CLIP BEGINS

• [Richard] “Under Milk Wood.” By Dylan Thomas. To begin at the beginning. It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible down to the sloe-black, slow, black, crow-black, fishing-boat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles, though moles see fine tonight in the snouting, velvet dingles, or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows’ weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now. Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cocklewomen, and the tidy wives. Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glowworms down the aisles of the organ-playing wood. The boys are dreaming wicked or of the bucking ranches of the night and the jolly-rogered sea. And the anthracite statues of the horses sleep in the fields, and the cows in the byres, and the dogs in the wet-nosed yards, and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sly, streaking and needling, on the one cloud of the roofs. You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing. Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep. And you alone can hear the invisible starfall, the darkest-before dawn minutely dew-grazed stir of the black, dab-filled sea where the Arethusa, the curlew, and the skylark, Zanzibar, Rhiannon, the Rover, the cormorant, and the Star of Wales tilt and ride. Listen.

It is night moving in the streets, the processional salt slow musical wind in Coronation Street and Cockle Row, it is the grass growing on Llareggub Hill, dewfall, starfall, the sleep of birds in Milk Wood. Listen. It is night in the chill, squat chapel, hymning in bonnet and brooch and bombazine black, butterfly choker and bootlace bow, coughing like nanny-goats, sucking mintoes, forty-winking hallelujah, night in the four-ale, quiet as a domino, in Ocky Milkman’s lofts like a mouse with gloves, in Dai Bread’s bakery flying like black flour. It is tonight in Donkey Street, trotting silent, with seaweed on its hooves, along the cockled cobbles, past curtained fernpot, text and trinket, harmonium, holy dresser, watercolours done by hand, china dog and rosy tin teacaddy. It is night neddying among the snuggeries of babies. Look. It is night, dumbly, royally winding through the Coronation cherry trees, going through the graveyard of Bethesda with winds gloved and folded, and dew doffed, tumbling by the Sailor’s Arms. Time passes. Listen. Time passes. Come closer now. Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night. Only you can see, in the blinded bedrooms, the coms and petticoats over the chairs, the jugs and basins, the glasses of teeth, Thou Shalt Not on the wall, and the yellowing dickybird-watching pictures of the dead. Only you can hear and see, behind the eyes of the sleepers, the movements and countries and mazes and colours and dismays and rainbows and tunes and wishes and flight and fall and despairs and big seas of their dreams. From where you are, you can hear their dreams.

CLIP ENDS

• Can you hold it there please, Judy?

• [Richard] Captain Cat,

• “From there we are, we can hear their dreams. Time passes.” It’s this image, obviously, of this guy at night, thinking of all the people in the small little village, or the small town, you know, who are sleeping. But their dreams, their lives, the ordinariness of their daily lives. But what are the secrets of their heart that he talks about in the previous poem? If one isn’t touched, I think, by Richard Burton reading this, I don’t know if one is human, that’s my personal opinion, but I think he, not only because, you know, Burton obviously was Welsh, but because he’s such a brilliant performer actor, but he gets right inside Dylan Thomas, I think, the language, the rhythms, the poetry. We can show the next slide, please. So I just want to take out some of the key phrases from, “Under Milk Wood.” “To begin at the beginning. It is spring moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, cobblestreets silent,” on and on. you know, “Crow-black, fishing-boat-bobbing sea.” I mean, it is playing like James Joyce with words all the time, but I don’t think it’s without substance. I don’t think it’s without meaning inside the fantastic imagery that he’s creating. “Hush, the babies,” et cetera. “You can hear the dew falling, on your eyes.” We can go on to the next slide, please. “The black, drab-filled sea. Listen, it is night moving in the streets, the processional salt slow musical wind.” What a phrase.

“The sleep of birds in Milk Wood. Listen, it is night in the chill, coughing like, hallelujah. Time passes, listen, time passes.” And then suddenly, “Come closer now.” Yes, I know it was written as a play for voices and I come onto whether it’s a play or not, but, come closer now, come share with me, as we voyeuristically eavesdrop almost, and try to imagine ordinary townspeople in their sleep, in their dreams, of life and sleep. And what are they doing with their time? “Only you can,” now it starts to become personal. “Only you can hear the houses sleeping,” et cetera. “The slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night.” What an image. “Only you can see glasses of teeth, Thou Shalt Not,” obvious references. “Wishes and flight and despairs and big seas of their dreams. From where you are, you can hear their dreams.” And you know, this for me is the end of the first section of the poem, which obviously goes on and on. But it’s again, it’s what do we do with our dreams? What do we do with the dreams of carefree youth and childhood? Like the dream of the poem, “Fern Hill,” what does he do with his father’s dream as the father’s dying? Rage, Father, rage against the dying of your light in your own way. Can we hear their dreams? And by cleverly transposing onto you, “You can hear their dreams,” we are subtly invited to think of, well, what are our dreams? What is my dream? You know? But he doesn’t say, “What’s your dream?” He said, “You can hear their dreams.” And it’s always a fantastic technique poets used to bring us right in. We go way back to the ancient Greek Homer again. When we read Homer with a good translation, of course, like this, we get the influence that Homer had on all of these guys, going right their way through Dylan Thomas, James Joyce, so many others. The very named “Ulysses” of James Joyce’s great novel.

You know, he wanted to write his own, in a way, Ulysses. Ordinary people, caught up as Joyce does, caught up, you know, in the cycle of a day or two, a night or two in the small village in Wales, somewhere. It’s an imaginary village. And without going into play on words and names, which are so many now. So for me, it’s again the same theme that comes through. And there’s humour and there’s wit, and there’s a sensitive, gentle caring about people. He’s not judging or dismissing, just because they’re ordinary people in small towns or small villages. He’s not dismissive. It’s, “Come closer, let’s try and get inside their secret hearts.” So, and the “Milk Wood,” of course, is, you know, the woods, the forests which have their own image of, you know, the forests are always something different. A bit gothic, a bit exciting, mysterious, you know, in the human imagination. It’s a place of difference. It’s not a place of, you know, very predictable or solid security. And then, endless reference to time yet again and again. Each person is in the forest of their own, the metaphorical forest of their own dream for life, not just at night sleeping, but you know, the loss, the broken dreams of life or the achieved dreams of life. The captain has a dream, his dreaming endlessly about his drowned shipmates who long to live again and enjoy the pleasures of life. Mog Edwards and Myfanwy Price, they dream of each other. Mr. Waldo dreams of his childhood and his failed marriages. Mrs. Ogmore Pritchard, the names are playful like Dickens, dreams of her deceased husbands. “Under Milk Wood” is a play for voices, yes, but it’s a dream of their dreams. And by putting it onto them, he makes us, I think, aware of what are our own, what have we achieved. And in Stephen Hawking where, what have we succeeded for ourselves? Not just in terms of external validation.

So, you know, interestingly, in the last lines of the poem, Dylan Thomas describes the woods, and he uses three adjectives towards right the end of the poem, “Lovely, dark, and deep forest,” “Lovely,” sensual. “Dark,” the secrets of the heart, and “Deep,” meaning, ideas, thought. It’s those words which are not just cliche, they resonate to me. He wrote that, you know, “Life is of course, tragic and comic. We die, we have noses. We are not united by our drabness and our smallness. We are united by our small heroisms.” That’s a phrase from Dylan Thomas. He wrote in a letter to a friend. “We are united by our small heroisms.” I think it’s a beautiful, it’s a stunning invitation, way to see life as we age. It’s a tapestry of thoughts. It’s much more playful radio, I don’t think it’s for the stage, really. I think it’s for radio, evocative like Richard Burton, and others have read it, and you know, and so on. This was a huge hit when he wrote it, but again, you couldn’t categorise. Drama, poetry, comedy, serious? Was it better read, or listened to, or watched? You know, which of it all? You know, the fantasies, isn’t it, or is it? And that phrase again and again, “Come closer now. From where you are, you can hear their dreams.” And by doing that, from where we are, we can hear our own dreams come closer to ourselves, I think, is what he’s inviting us. So is it too many words? Yes, for the stage, definitely. But it’s not only the quantity of words, it’s the words, how they overflow, how they don’t stop. The words just keep, on the one hand, yes, they’re too many, way too many, tumbling out and it’s too much to absorb. But on the other hand, like James Joyce, it opens and mobilises our imagination. Gosh, there could be another way to live. “Joie de vivre”, the sensuality, taste, touch, sight, smell the senses of life. And just to remind us a bit of that and what we’re doing with our time.

And I think there’s a relish, through language, through words, a relish for life that he’s trying to ultimately, you know, speak to us about. And it’s impressionistic. Dylan Thomas wrote, “All my characters in the poem are eccentrics. Their eccentricities are briefly and impressionistically put in. I don’t judge, I don’t condemn, I don’t explain. I try to make the strange simple, and the simple strange.” And I think that sums it up. It’s an impressionistic painting, you know, of these people, the peddler, the cobbler, they’re known by their social types, not by deep inner life of character, but he’s trying to find the secret to the dream and the secret in their hearts. Kenneth Tynan, the fantastic English critic, of theatre and many other things, he wrote that, “The piece works better on radio than watching a group of actors on stage. As someone wisely observed, the pictures are better on radio.” I love that phrase. “The pictures are better on radio.” And it’s true. And I think this works better like Burton, you know, the pictures are better on radio. Is it just a whole, you know, indulgent outpouring of words and some kind of sense of a vague Welshness? You know, to me, it’s much more, for reasons that I’ve mentioned already. So I think what what I really would like to, in a way, to end up with, is to say that I think you know, that he is a cultural icon, he is a folk hero. He was taken up by rockstars, film stars, you know, pop culture, in a phrase. And I don’t think that’s something to be sniffed at.

You know, I would never be so arrogant as to do that. I think it’s, we have to incorporate all of it in the magical tapestry of English literature and poetry. He’s populist in the way that Homer was, the ancient, you know, for me, we all go back to that. Stories, images, ideas, all that, you know, and I come back to Homer again, maybe sometime in another lecture. I think what he did, and I think this is a very important thought that I want to share, was he learned how to make his outsiderness an advantage. And it’s a challenge for everybody who’s Jewish, and many other races, religions, or whatever. How do we make our outsiderness an advantage in life? And I think that’s a very powerful, and that for me, because he’s not university educated, and especially in those days, this is in the thirties, forties, he’s 16 when he leaves school, no more education. He teaches himself, self-educated, et cetera. He’s trying to mix with all those who are educated, and so on, and he’s Welsh, and he’s, you know, the short guy, and all the rest of it. Overweight, drinking so much, How do you make your outsiderness an advantage? And I think he knew the secret. And I think, and yes, he destroys himself with drink in the end, which is terrible. But he finds a way to do that, achieve that. there’s a freewheeling, a wildness, there’s a mirror up to human nature in all its glories and muddiness. But he’s also sophisticated for me. I don’t think he lacks anything intellectually, but it’s coming from a more intuitive, instinctive approach, rather than, you know, learned scholarly. Neither of them is better or worse, it’s just different. And I think I want to leave us with that final thoughts. How do we make an advantage of our otherness? And I think that’s what he does. Okay, so thanks everybody. We can go on to some questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Paula, “Better known because he’s easier to understand and teach.” Yep, I agree, absolutely.

Burace, “For 56 years of marriage, no Christmas is complete until we sit and listen to ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales,’” absolutely.

Linda and Peter in Santa Barbara. Great, yeah, and that’s very different to, you know, the classic Charles Dickens, of Scrooge. And I’m not knocking that, but that’s the other huge one obviously, of story of Christmas.

Carol, “Dylan Thomas, one of my husband’s favourites, ‘Do not go gently,’ beautifully read by the rabbi at my late husband’s memorial service.” That’s beautiful to share. Thank you, Carol.

John, “Derek Mahon the poet, suggested Thomas preferred to mix with journalists and actors rather than academics who felt stultifying.” Yes, absolutely.

Q: Joe, “Why do you say his language is stolen?”

A: No, I just, one of my lecturers when I studied at Columbia, used to say, “Originality is merely lack of information.” And he used to talk about how everybody steals from everybody else. And it’s a playful, metaphorical idea of everybody builds on other poets, everybody borrows, steals, adapts from what has gone before. The classic Homer’s “Odyssey,” James Joyce, “Ulysses,” you know. Everybody borrows, adapt, steals, but the trick is how to make it something of their own. And that’s for me, an imaginative intelligence. They’re not just repeating or echoing. They’re able to take it a whole step further, you know.

Joe, it’s wonderful to hear again, thank you. Yeah, I love, you know, when you hear him reading it or Burton, or even Jacobi reading the other, it takes a whole different feel.

Lynn, “It’s wonderful, no one can surpass his reading of the poem.” Yeah, and that’s obviously how he’s imagining it as he’s, you know, writing it. So we get inside his head, you know, as well.

Herbert, “The Ford 2018 Mustang commercial was banned in Britain. "cause in the background, a man was quietly reading Dylan’s ‘Do not go,’ and the censors felt it would promote angry drunken road rage.” That is made for the Monty Python, or some other, you know, great comedian or satirist. I didn’t know that, Herbert, that’s fascinating to hear.

Q: And thanks, Martin, “Dylan Thomas a Welsh poet, Did he speak or write the Welsh language?”

A: I didn’t go, I decided to hold on that for this. But it’s a really important question you’re asking, Martin, and let me get back to you about that. You know, obviously he knew some of it, but you know how much he knew of, you know, that I need to research again.

Hannah, “Beautiful diction,” yep.

Romaine, thank you.

Estelle, “Can’t believe his wonderful voice. So unexpected given his drinking.” That’s why I wanted to use that provocative title. Is he just an alcoholic wordsmith or not? And to me, you know, when we hear it, we feel everything that I was trying to say today. The musicality, the rhythm, the poetry, the language.

Monty, “How often you should mention him and Charles Bosman,” yep. “I have six volumes,”

Oh. “A brilliant white South African writer,” yep.

“Anyone interested in small town life, pre-Apartheid South Africa, or not?” No, and I think Bosman is so underrated or maybe not, not only in South Africa but elsewhere, because the story somehow try and capture something very, very similar of small town South Africa of Bosman’s times, you know, and that kind of writing, you know, that Bosman and many others, and I think Dylan Thomas, they’re all part of it. I think that’s how Roy Campbell can understand him so well also.

A great point, Monty. Miriam, “In addition to time, he’s also obsessed with night and light,” yep. “Plus, his voice reminds me of Orson Wells.” That’s a fascinating connection, Miriam. Never thought of that, that’s great, that idea.

Yeah, night and light. If I may indulge Bob Dylan’s song, “Time is an ocean, but it stops at the shore.” Bob, “It seems like Dylan Thomas have had a premonition by his own length of time.”

Thanks, oh, thanks very much Barbara.

Susan, ‘Hearing Thomas recite his words being on almost a different meaning.“ Exactly, because then we get, you know, this is how he’s imagining the poem. This is not a drunken guy just, you know, churning out words. The rhythm, the attention to the rhythm, the language, the detail, the musicality, the meaning. All of it comes when we hear him reading it himself.

Miriam, "First time I heard of, 'And Death shall Have No Dominion.’” Yep, that was, I think, Derek Jacobi reading it, yeah.

Lynn, “I was recording a physical of Dylan Thomas when I was a teenager, and I was hooked by both,” yeah, “Thomas and Burton.” I think Richard Burton remains for me, the most powerful of “Under Milk Wood.” Welsh of such wonderful, beautiful way. Yep, there’s a whole different, you know, when you also go to Wales, I’m sure many, many people have been to Wales far more often than I have, but you do feel it compared to other parts of England. You know, it’s less regulated, it’s less cultivated, it’s a bit rougher and wilder.

Rita, thank you.

Lynn, yeah. The name of it is, read it backwards, as “Bugger all,” you know, that was the name, and it got past the censors of the BBC. They never picked it up. That read it backwards as “Bugger all,” ‘cause it probably had been banned if they’d picked up the meaning. And this is in the forties, of course.

Richard Burton, Susan, yep.

Anne, “Burton is brilliant.” Yeah, he’s an actor and Welsh, exactly. and he knows how to exactly, as if he’s speaking to one person, which we all try to do here on Zoom, as if I’m speaking to each person individually because you’re watching on your own or with a partner, or with each other, you know. But to feel you’re being addressed personally, which is what a great actor does.

Exactly, Anne. J-Z-E, “'Salt black’ his use of salt.” Yeah, there’s endless references to the sea. Obviously, that’s where he’s living. I want to show that image next to the sea and it’s the Atlantic, so, you know, a whole different feel right up there. And it’s endless references to the sea, of course. England’s an island nation, but also, you know, where he is in Wales is by the sea, so often, Margaret, thank you.

Yeah, the epithets, the imagery. Yeah, Lynn, I agree. Seen it performed on stage and listened as a play for voices. Yes, I also agree with you, Lynn. You know, the pictures work better on radio, as Kenneth Tynan wrote.

Marilyn, “The TV show, ‘The Blacklist’ uses this poem.” Ah, great, thank you. I didn’t know.

Carol, thank you.

Q: Barry, “Did Dylan have any connection with Jews? I loved him at university in Rhodesia,” oh. A: I researched that for this lecture, but there’s very little. And I mean there’s no mention anywhere of his letters or poetry of any kind of prejudice towards Jews or anybody else for that matter. And when I look at T.S. Eliot next week, there’s obvious, I mean, T.S. Eliot is a brilliant, brilliant, modernist poet, and I want to look at that. But we, you know, but also be honest to, you know, his antisemitism, there’s no question. you know, but I’m not going to only discuss that next week, discuss his poetry as well, but we have to be aware, you know, of T.S. Eliot’s antisemitism, Dylan Thomas, zero.

Q: Maria, “What kind of literary education did he get?”

A: Well, his father being an English teacher, taught him a lot, and as I said, he left school at the age of 16. So it was through his father. And you know, his mother was a seamstress, but his father loved, and his parents loved reading rhymes, children’s rhymes to him, and the rest I think, he taught himself. That’s it.

Rona, “I find the words are hard to decipher, yet my tears have poured in the lecture.” I think because he’s able to use words to touch our human hearts. And that’s why I think he’s so popular amongst so many people. Educated minimally, or not educated in English literature or not, doesn’t matter. As he wrote in that poem, you know, “In My Craft Or Sullen Art,” you know, “The secrets of the heart,” that’s what he’s interested in. And “Under Milk Wood” is impressionistic. It’s impressions of people’s lives. It’s not deep psychology, but what are their dreams? And that’s the obsession, dreams and time. And once we go in to understand a human through their dreams, we find so much of the human heart, I think. And that’s also what so much of home is about for me.

Nima, thanks. Cool breeze, oh, in Tel Aviv, it’s great to hear, Nima. And I’m trying, I’m improving my Hebrew because my beloved sister is here from Jerusalem, and her daughter and grandchildren are all here from Jerusalem. So you know, exactly, they come for the week.

Andy, “I live in White Oak Tavern in Greenwich Village,” fantastic. “I was intrigued by Dylan Thomas.” Oh, thank you.

Barbara said, “I don’t appreciate, ‘Don’t go gently.’” Yeah, I think it does require some age and life experience. to really appreciate that poem. Never, let’s not forget, he’s writing this in his early thirties, you know, Dylan Thomas. I mean he’s dead by the time he’s 37.

Rona, yeah. Sue, “‘Milk Wood’ was written for BBC radio,” yeah. “He might not have gone to university, but his education, Bishop Gore Grammar school in Swansea.” Yes, you are absolutely right.

That’s a really good point, Sue. The education there, and other people educated there, is quite a list of names. It’s excellent education, and to that together with of that school, I agree. From what I’ve read. Sue, thank you for reminding me. The education there and others who went there. Really good.

Q: Greta, “Did Robert Frost lift the phrase?”

A: I think so. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.” Yeah, I think lifted, stole it, borrowed it. You choose.

Pierre, “He paints an imaginary canvas,” yep.

Allison, thank you, it’s great.

Diane, “At 94, I saw rage.” Fantastic, Diane. Okay, never stop quietly raging. Not the quiet despair, but quietly rage. That to me, is so much of the choice of life.

Shirley, “I visited his home in Little Wood.” Ah, “The view is really joining the words.” Exactly, yep, it’s great.

Margaret, “I don’t think the Welsh should be very happy to hear the country compared with other parts of England.” I agree.

Sheila, thanks, your kind words. “But his heartland in Welsh-speaking areas within the northwest around Aberystwyth.” Yeah, Anglesey, I’ve been to Anglesey. In fact, a libretto I wrote for an opera was staged there at a Welsh opera festival. Yep, in the first part of the 20th century, yep. It’s all on that Welsh coast.

Sandy, “In the late fifties, I was in ‘Under Milk Wood.’” Ah, “At McGill.” I’ve been to, I gave a talk at McGill years ago, “In little cameos directed by young Moses,” Oh, okay. “It was a remarkable experience,” fantastic.

Montreal, “I just heard you say, ‘Bugger all.’” Yep, well it’s the name of the village is, “Bugger all” backwards. Again, the BBC censors never picked it up in the forties.

Herbert, “My three favourite Welshman, Richard Burton, , and Dylan Thomas.” Yep, great. Francis, “Whether it was over-the-topness or the wordiness of his poetry, with the great depth of feeling.” Yeah, he embraced, exactly.

Q: Zis, “Did he give false testimony against another artist?”

A: Not far as I know.

Josie, “I very much look forward,” Oh, thank you. Thanks again to Josie, and Lynn, thanks very kind.

Jean, “I visited his shed, it’s beautiful.” Yep, that’s wonderful.

Delia, “He is part of the Welsh nation of singers, and feel his voice could take off into song.” Yep, that’s a great point.

Okay, that’s it. So thank you very much everybody. Hope you have a great rest of the weekend. And Judy, thanks so much again for everything.