DYLAN THOMAS IN AMERICA – September 9 @ MERLIN – New English American Theater Stuttgart

A Bard’s-Eye View of the USA – “I’m hardly living. I’m just a voice on wheels.”

Dylan Thomas was one of the best poets of his generation and is also renowned for writing and speaking lively, perceptive prose. During his lifetime, Thomas was spoken of as „the greatest living poet in English“

In January 1950, at the age of thirty-five, Thomas visited America for the first time. His reading tours of the United States, which did much to popularize the poetry reading as a new medium for the art, are famous and notorious. Thomas was the archetypal Romantic poet of the popular American imagination—he was theatrical, engaged in roaring disputes in public, and read his work aloud with tremendous depth of feeling.

His electrifying performances had a huge impact on the American audiences. His performances during these tours contrasted between tender and lyrical to powerful and oratorical. He became a legendary figure, both for his work and the boisterousness of his life.

Dylan Thomas, the poetic voice of Wales was one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, enjoying fame that extended far beyond his native country. Even during his lifetime, he was a star in America, his public readings winning him great acclaim. His distinctive voice with its Welsh lilt became almost as famous as his literary work.

Dylan’s first trip to America in 1950 was in part determined by money. His poems were being published there, and he had a considerable stateside following.

American Poet and benefactor, John Malcolm Brinnin writes about Thomas’ arrival in New York City; “Bundled like an immigrant in a shapeless rough woolen parka, his hair as tangled as a nest from which the bird has flown, his eyes wide, scared, as if they sought the whole dreadful truth of America at once, he came into the zero cold of a frosty bright morning at Idlewild Airport.”