Many of Dylan’s poems have been found since his death, for example within letters to friends, or in hotel visitor books, as well as many typescript poems, including eight early poems which are presumebly from the missing 1932 notebook.
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- When was it written: c.1932
When and where it was first published: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). - Where you can find it now: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). Currently out of print.
- Excerpt:
Walking in gardens by the sides
Of marble bathers toeing the garden ponds,
Skirting the ordered beds of pain-box flowers,
We spoke of drink and girls, for hours. - Further information: This poem is presumably from the missing 1932 notebook which can be found as a typescript at the British Library.
- When was it written: c.1932
When and where it was first published: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). - Where you can find it now: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). Currently out of print.
- Excerpt:
Now the thirst parches lip and tongue,
The dry fever burns until no heart is left,
Now is decay in bone and sinew. - Further information: This poem is presumably from the missing 1932 notebook which can be found as a typescript at the British Library.
- When was it written: c.1932
When and where it was first published: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). - Where you can find it now: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). Currently out of print.
- Excerpt:
Lift up your face, light
Breaking, stare at the sky
Consoling for night by day
That chases the ghosts of the trees. - Further information: This poem is presumably from the missing 1932 notebook which can be found as a typescript at the British Library.
- When was it written: c.1932
When and where it was first published: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). - Where you can find it now: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). Currently out of print.
- Further information: This six line poem is presumably from the missing 1932 notebook which can be found as a typescript at the British Library.
- When was it written: c.1932
When and where it was first published: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). - Where you can find it now: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). Currently out of print.
- Excerpt:
The midnight road, though young man tread unknowing,
Harbouring some thought of heaven, or haven hoping,
Yields peace and plenty at the end. - Further information: This poem is presumably from the missing 1932 notebook which can be found as a typescript at the British Library.
- When was it written: c.1932
When and where it was first published: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). - Where you can find it now: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). Currently out of print.
- Excerpt:
With windmills turning wrong directions,
And signposts pointing up and down
Towards destruction and redemption. - Further information: This poem is presumably from the missing 1932 notebook which can be found as a typescript at the British Library.
- When was it written: c.1932
When and where it was first published: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). - Where you can find it now: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). Currently out of print.
- Excerpt:
The gossipers have lowered their voices,
Willing words to make the rumours certain.
Suspicious hands tug at neighbouring vices. - Further information: This poem is presumably from the missing 1932 notebook which can be found as a typescript at the British Library.
- When was it written: c.1932
When and where it was first published: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). - Where you can find it now: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). Currently out of print.
- Excerpt:
Especially when the November wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Or, beaten on be the straight beams of the sun,
I walk abroad, feeling my youth like fire. - Further information: This poem is presumably from the missing 1932 notebook which can be found as a typescript at the British Library.
- When was it written: c.1934 and rewritten in 1944
When and where it was first published: Poetry (London), June 1944
and The Poems, edited by Daniel Jones (1971) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: This very short poem was a later version of an earlier poem ‘Thy breath was shed‘.
- When was it written: c.1937
When and where it was first published: Dylan Thomas: A New Life, Andrew Lycett (2003) - Where you can find it now: Dylan Thomas: The Collected Poems, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Where you can find it now: Dylan Thomas: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: These three very short limericks were found in scrapbooks of Veronica Sibthorpe, an artist friend, which can now be found in the National Library of Wales.
- When was it written: October 1937
- Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: This was a ‘four line epitaph’ included in a letter to Vernon Watkins.
Click here to go to Collected Stories for more details.
- When was it written: c.1937/38
When and where it was first published: Wales (March 1938), collected in A Prospect of the Sea (1955) and Collected Stories, edited by Walford Davies (1983) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion and Collected Stories, edited by Walford Davies (1983).
- Further information: This is referred to as a ‘poetry-prose’ piece.
- When was it written: June 1938
When and where it was first published: The Poems, edited by Daniel Jones (1971) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poem of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: This poem was inserted into a letter for Henry Treece.
- When was it written: c.October 1938
When and where it was first published: Seven, October 1938 (as ‘Poem’) and collected in The Poems, edited by Daniel Jones (1971) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: This very short poem was included in a letter sent to Vernon Watkins.
- When was it written: c.October 1938
When and where it was first published: Collected Poems, edited by Walford Davies and Ralph Maud (1988) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: This short poem was enclosed with a postcard to Vernon Watkins.
- When was it written: Spring/summer 1940
When and where it was first published: Cambridge Front (Summer 1940) and Letters to Vernon Watkins, edited by Vernon Watkins (1957) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: This was included in a letter to Vernon Watkins.
- When was it written: July-December 1940
When and where it was first published: 1976 - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: These four parodies are part of a novel, The Death of the King’s Canary, written in collaboration with John Davenport
- When was it written: 1943 and revised in 1945
When and where it was first published: The Poems, edited by Daniel Jones (1971) – the 1978 edition
and Collected Letters, edited by Paul Ferris (2000) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: It has been suggested by Dylan’s friend Daniel Jones that this was written in collaboration with another friend, Wynford Vaughan-Thomas.
- When was it written: 1944
When and where it was first published: Poetry (London), June 1944
and The Poems, edited by Daniel Jones (1971) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
Click here to go to screenplays for more details
- When was it written: 1943 and 1944
- Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: These were propaganda films made for Gryphon Films during the Second Word War.
- When was it written: August 1942 and September 1944
- Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: These were verse letters sent to T.W Earp. ‘Dear Tommy – please, from far, sciatic Kingsley‘, ‘So much Meux has flowed under the bridges‘ and ‘On an on General Bock is driving a wedge among pincers‘.
- When was it written: c.October 1944
- Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: This was included in a letter to Donald Taylor.
Click here to go to broadcasts or Collected Stories for more details.
- When was it written: 1944
- Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: Quite Early One Morning was the prequel to Under Milk Wood and was broadcast on the 31 August 1945.
- When was it written: March/April 1947 and reworked in October 1951
When and where it was first published: The Poems, edited by Daniel Jones (1971) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, Edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Excerpt:
Always, when he, in Country Heaven,
(Whom my heart hears),
Crosses the breast of the praising East, and kneels,
Humble in all his planets,
And weeps on the abasing hill. - Further information: Dylan had wanted to include a poem called ‘In Country Heaven‘ in a future collection. This is a draft of the poem. It appears that he wanted it to be one long poem combining ‘In Country Sleep‘, ‘Over Sir John’s Hill‘, and ‘In the White Giant’s Thigh’.
- When was it written: June-August 1950
When and where it was first published: Letter to Loren by Jeff Towns (1993) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: This was a ‘verse-letter’ to two of Dylan’s friends, Lloyd Frankenberg, a writer and an artist called Loren McIver.
- When was it written: 1951
- Where you can find it now: : The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: This was an improvised piece created while Dylan was with friends in a pub.
- When was it written: 1953
When and where it was first published: 23 January 1953 - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Further information: These were pamphlets printed for members of the Court of Redonda, a drinking club.
Click here to go to Under Milk Wood for more details
- When was it written: c.1951-1953
When and where it was first published: Under Milk Wood, edited by Daniel Jones (1954) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- When was it written: Autumn 1953
When and where it was first published: Added as an appendix to copies of Dylan’s Collected Poems printed after 1956. - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014), published by Orion.
- Excerpt:
Too proud to die, broken and blind he died
The darkest way, and did not turn away,
A cold, kind man brave in his burning pride. - Further information: This was Dylan’s last, unfinished poem, written for his late father, D.J.
- When was it written: c.1942
When and where it was first published: Lilliput (1942) - Where you can find it now: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, The New Centenary Edition, edited by John Goodby (2014) – Paperback edition, published by Orion.
- Further information: This poem was re-discovered in 2015 and has been included in the paper-back edition of The Collected Poems (2014).
- When was it written: c.1928
- Excerpt:
My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.
- When was it written: 1934 When and where it was first published: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989).
- Where you can find it now: Dylan Thomas: The Notebook Poems 1930-1934, edited by Ralph Maud (1989). Currently out of print.
- Excerpt:
From I knew the lamb on knocking knees,
The ousel and the maniac greens of spring;
Caught on a narrow easel metal skies,
And on a yard of canvas inch of wing. - Further information: This was rewritten in 1934. It was originally notebook three, poem ‘twenty-eight’. It is on a typescript at the British Library.