I selected this poem to exhibit, because it made me think, "geez, this guy was an extropian!"

                        Poem from Collected Poems 1934-1952  
 
                           Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

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 learn, 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.

Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas Biography

Thomas was born October 27, 1914 in the respectable Swansea, Wales to a loving and overly doting mother and strict father who did not achieve his own dreams of becoming a poet but instead became a English school teacher. Thomas had one sibling, his sister who was born nine years before his birth. Thomas had troubles in school but was always fond of the English language and his parents encouraged him to write. He dropped out of school at age 16 and briefly held a job as a reporter at the South Wales Evening Post, and although he was eventually let go, he did continue to freelance. When he was twenty in 1934 he published his first book called 18 Poems, followed by Twenty-five Poems in 1936, Deaths and Entrances in 1946 and Collected Poems in 1952. He also wrote prose, was published in periodicals, wrote film scripts and for radio broadcast. In 1936 Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara in a pub, they fell in love and were married the following year. Llewelyn was born to them in 1939, followed by Aeron in 1940 and Colm in 1949. The marriage had problems, although Caitlin and Dylan had been rumored to have had drunken arguments, it was Dylan who began to acquire a reputation as a loud drinker and Caitlin complained of this, as well as his long tours away from home, to which Dylan would respond with even deeper distance. Both apparently had affairs while they were married. His alcoholism apparently (although this is sometimes up for debate) caused his demise when he died while on a US tour lecture, in New York at the age of 39 on November 9th 1953. A glorious and tragic tale, which irony, makes all the more interesting.