Dylan Thomas Day

On 14^th May 1953, Under Milk Wood, written by Dylan Thomas, had its first staged reading at the 92nd Street Y Poetry Center in New York. To commemorate this event, 14^th May has been designated as ‘Dylan Day’, a day chosen to celebrate the life and work of Dylan Thomas.  

Literature Wales  has invited everyone to join in the fun and a host of events has been planned, in the UK and around the world, from creative writing workshops, literary tours, educational resources and readings in unusual places!

If you would like to hear ‘Under Milk Wood’, a rare recording of a 1957 broadcast, narrated by Donald Houston, is available through the BBC. Or if you would like to read poetry, stories or plays by Dylan Thomas, or delve into biographies or critical essays about the author, have the look at our catalogue. We've plenty for you to choose from! 

                        Inside Dylan Thomas' Writing Shed in Laugharne.

                           (Photograph courtesy of: Alison Beckett)

It’s World Poetry Day today, everybody shout, “Hurray!”

Ok, so it’s not up there with “I wandered lonely as a cloud…”, but it does rhyme! Yes, today is World Poetry Day, first established in 1999 by UNESCO to celebrate the linguistic diversity and creativity that poems can offer.

We’ve got tons in the way of poetry here at UWTSD Swansea. As well as all the poetry books on our shelves, we have online access to thousands of poems via our database Literature Online. Just click the link to access the database and see what you can find!

This year, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is marking World Poetry Day with an online memorial of First World War poems. They’d like members of the public to get involved by recording themselves reading a favourite Word War I poem and sending it in to add to the archive (details on the website ). You can check out other people’s recordings and choices with the hashtag #WWIpoetry on Twitter. If you’re looking for inspiration, take a look at the war poetry on the shelves at Townhill.

Dylan Thomas and his ugly, lovely town

With the centenary of his birth this year, Elijah Wood on location in the city filming Set Fire to the Stars - the latest movie to centre on the life of Dylan Thomas – and the replica shed heading out on tour, what better time to rediscover the life and work of Swansea’s famous son? As you’d expect, we have a good selection of books written by and about Dylan Thomas in our collection!

He’s best known as a poet (if we ignore his fame as a drinker!), so there’s a lot to choose from if you’re looking for a collection of poetry to dip into. You’ll find a good selection of short stories too, if that’s more your thing, as well as his classic A child’s Christmas in Wales, though you may want to hang on a few months before dipping into that one! If you’re more interested in the man than his work, or want to find out more about one to better appreciate the other, give one of the many biographies a try. Finally, if you’d like to take a leaf out of Elijah’s book and follow in Dylan’s footsteps round South West Wales, you’ll want to take a look at Dylan Thomas’s Swansea, Gower and Laugharne, which offers an excellent introduction to Dylan’s life and background in relation to the areas he loved and the writing they inspired. And we live in a beautiful part of the world, so frankly, these places are worth a visit whether or not you have an interest in Dylan Thomas!

Worm's Head, as seen from the beach at Rhossili. Dylan Thomas was once stranded on the headland, cut off by the tide!

Read a book, or watch tv...?

"Please, oh please, we beg, we pray
Go throw your TV set away
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall"

Taken from the poem 'Television' by Roald Dahl.

Happy birthday Mr Shakespeare!

Shakepeare's Birthplace and garden in Stratford-Upon-Avon
(photo by Hannah Meiklejohn at Townhill Library)

Yes, today is William Shakespeare’s birthday. Well, the 23^rd April is the date traditionally given as his birth. It’s a bit hard to check the records for the 16^th century! We do know that he was baptised on 26^th April 1564, so he’d be 449 this year. Expect to see some special events across the country to mark his 250^th birthday next year! (Incidentally, the 23^rd April is also the day he died, but we won’t dwell on that!) If you’d like to find out more about Shakespeare’s life, our database Oxford Reference Online, where we found this information, is an excellent place to start.

We have lots of books and other resources if you’re a Shakespeare fan, or think you’d like to be. Take a look at our catalogue to see what’s about! You’ll find the bard’s plays mostly on the ground floor of Townhill Library, though there are a few up on the first floor in the Teaching Practice collection too. We’ve even got a few which have been adapted forchildren, so if you fancy Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Henry V or Romeo and Juliet, but you aren’t quite up to the original, give those a go! If you don’t even feel up to that, you could always take a look at our DVDs. (You’ll see Shakespeare in Love in our collection too!)

There are also lots of resources online for you. Our databases Literature Online and JSTOR are excellent places to find journal articles about Shakespeare and his work. You’ll even find online links to his poetry and plays on Literature Online! On the web, you might like to take a look at the RoyalShakespeare Company’s website. There’s a fab section of Education resources where you’ll find material for early years right through to grown-ups!

Roses are red, violets are blue...

...Today is World Poetry Day, so why not borrow an anthology from SMU?

We’ve got poetry to suit all tastes, from Romantics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge to the more recent musings of Roger McGough. Do you have a favourite poem or poet? Let us know! If you’re feeling creative, we’d love to read your poems on libraries, SMU, or poetry in general in our comments section.

For the record, I’m a fan of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven (though it does always remind me of The Simpsons episode that featured it!).