Dylan Thomas

[TC Chris]

Many years ago I initiated a new Christmas tradition. It's listening to Dylan Thomas read his piece, "A Child's Christmas in Wales." Thomas was a famous Welsh poet who literally drank himself to death before he was 40. But before he did that, some young women in NYC arranged to record him reading his poetry, and they established Caedmon Records to put them on LP. This piece was one he recorded (thank goodness).

The essay is memories (probably embellished and improved) from his childhood Christmases in 1920s England. He reads the piece with his astonishing voice, a musical instrument if ever there was one. With that voice, he could entertain us by reading the instructions for Asian electronic devices. Read about him here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_Thomas

Better still, listen to the piece online here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFSs2IdDmuU

I just listened to the first lines and I'm wiping my eyes. I'll save the full listen for later. It's magical.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

So classic, his descriptions of the presents, the events and circumstances...so lyrical. Was a voice ever better made for such reading?

Being mostly Irish I've a soft spot for stories and the spoken word, and similar recordings of readings by Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Heaney are equally magical. One wishes that Oscar Wilde, one of my favorites, had been recorded (or if he was I'm unaware of it).

Not Christmas-y, but here's very short piece ( 2 min) read by Seamus Heaney, who wrote a lot about work, farming, smithing, cattle, manual work; he can make a subject like digging potatoes seem a special thing:

https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJ ... e&ie=UTF-8

One thing I like about here is the wide ranging menu of discussion!

[TC Chris]

Being mostly Irish I've a soft spot for stories and the spoken word, and similar recordings of readings by Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Heaney are equally magical. One wishes that Oscar Wilde, one of my favorites, had been recorded (or if he was I'm unaware of it).

Not Christmas-y, but here's very short piece ( 2 min) read by Seamus Heaney, who wrote a lot about work, farming, smithing, cattle, manual work; he can make a subject like digging potatoes seem a special thing:

My favorite Oscar Wilde quote is one that (sadly) I use all the time, about the kind of people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Poetry seems to come alive when it is read well. Most poets don't read well; they get into a flat tone that rises at the end of each line, without regard to meaning. But then I recall hearing Garrison Keillor read Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods" on the radio. The poem had been ruined for me by Rocky & Bullwinkle. By the time Garrison reached those final lines, " But I have promises to keep,   And miles to go before I sleep,   And miles to go before I sleep," I was weeping. All the supposed triteness had blown away. Maybe you have to live in northern latitudes to understand it.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

We'd listened to PHC since the '80s and we had the priviledge of seeing Keillor (another from Northern latitudes) at Shelburne Musuem about 10 yrs ago. He truly is a master of a story, anecdotes, and narration, really a modern Will Rogers, as has been often said. I also always enjoyed The Writer's Almanac every morning on NPR, it's shame that the vilification he received for more-or-less (in perspective) relatively minor incidents forced him from the public eye; many less deserving have skated despite infinitely worse behavior. One hopes for something of a comeback before he's too old... I understand he's writing a book. In any event to hear him onstage, or on the radio, was always a great treat. I do have some of his work on CD to savor. In this time and place we need all the literary enrichment and perspective we can get.

[TC Chris]

I saw PHC live one time in Lansing. I had not expected how thrilling--the right word--it was when the "On The Air" light went on. Keillor was a treasure.

And it was on Writer's Almanac that he read the Frost poem and forever altered my view of it.

Chris Campbell