Whenever you encounter the phrase “Do not go gentle,” or a performance of Under Milk Wood, or a reading of A Child’s Christmas in Wales, please know that their currency and America’s respect for Dylan Thomas is due, in large part, to John Malcolm Brinnin and The 92nd Street Y.
In 1949, Brinnin, a 33-year-old Canadian poet, accepted the position of director of the Poetry Center, here at 92NY with “one thought foremost in my mind, to invite the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, to America.” Thomas, never good with money, and responsible for a young family, enthusiastically accepted Brinnin’s invitation on condition that Brinnin also arrange a tour for him. The American college lecture circuit promised Thomas financial riches unknown in post-war Britain and as the impoverished Dylan wrote to Brinnin “I must make money immediately.” With Brinnin acting as his agent, Dylan Thomas arrived in New York in February 1950 and embarked on a lucrative three-month tour, reading poetry at 40 venues, from Vancouver to Florida, Los Angeles to New York. The high point was here, at 92NY’s Kaufmann auditorium, packed to capacity, with over a thousand people, many standing.
As he crisscrossed North America Thomas electrified audiences with his sonorous readings but also shocked faculties and students with his “spectacular drinking” and profligacy. This was the beginning of an intense and fraught relationship that saw the increasingly erratic and ailing Dylan relying more and more heavily on Brinnin. Dylan was to visit America three more times and with Brinnin’s encouragement he finally completed his Under Milk Wood, which had its first public performance at 92NY. Unfortunately, on his final visit, in 1953, Dylan collapsed and died. He was 39 years old.
As a Welshman, I grew up with many competing versions of Dylan Thomas. But in the 1990s I discovered Thomas’ Collected Letters (edited by Paul Ferris) and could finally imagine a real person and gain some insight to the relationship he had with Brinnin. My Dear Mr. Thomas: A Play for Voices (in homage to Under Milk Wood) uses some of Dylan’s letters but does not pretend to be a biography of Dylan, or even an accurate rendering of his dealings with Brinnin and others, but it is most definitely inspired by and dedicated to their long-suffering interdependence. Much of the play comes from contemporary sources — but that does not mean it is true. And the rest I have invented — but that doesn’t mean that it is necessarily false.
Finally, I cannot begin to express the privilege of being asked to compose this and present it with Matthew Rhys as part of 92NY’s celebration. To quote the album title of another Dylan — Bob — it feels that we are Bringing It All Back Home.
— Christopher Monger, Los Angeles