Strephon Kaplan-Williams Books

Oscar was Dylan's agent in America, and was horribly upset when Dylan Thomas went into a coma. Dylan was in the hands of Elizabeth Reitell and Malcolm Brinnin at the time. They had not protected Dylan Thomas but misused him, according to Oscar and the poet, George Reavey. So it is a tragic story. This is told elsewhere. Here, let us compare two poems, one from each of them.

Dylan Thomas
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 produces a fine refrain line,

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The alliteration makes the lines easy to remember, though we may not understand what they mean. "good night" has a double meaning of death being positive because universal and also death being ending because we are saying goodbye. However, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." is paradoxical to the line above it. Why rage if the night of death is thought of as good? Night is described as the "dying of the light."

This can mean that life in existence is the ability to see things as they are, to experience things directly and understand them as they are. Thus life is defined here by the poet as the ability to see and experience things as they are, which you lose at death.

Great lines in themselves, and simple in their direct rhyming, the "meaning part" is perhaps weak. "dying of the light" is not a true opposite to "good night." You don't rage at "good night." So, does "go gentle" mean that you just give up because you believe death is a "good night?" Not clear, Dylan!

Did Dylan live in rage? No, he seems to have let himself be killed by poet eaters like Malcolm Brinnin who plied him with drink and drugs while in America. Dylan was too gentle. His father lived to be an old man.

For comparison:

Oscar Williams
THE LAST SUPPER

Apostles of the hidden sun
Are come unto the room of breath
Hung with the banging blinds of death,
The body twelve, the spirit one,
Far as the eye, in earth arrayed,
The night shining, the supper laid.

In these lines we see experience is conveyed in the rich use of imagery within the forward force of obvious rhythm, alliteration and rhyme.
The verse is descriptive but with no subject, either as the poet's voice, or as a character in the poem. "Apostles" is human but plural and thus distant.

The force of Dylan Thomas' poem is that it has a strong poet's voice saying what to do and not to do, thus telling also the poem reader what to do and not do with his or her own life and death. Dylan in each verse addresses a person or people. "Good men," "Wild men," "Brave men," and then the last specific focus, "and you, my father . . ."

The greater poetic force is the direct address to people in the poem and to the father, thus involving the reader indirectly, who is also a person facing death. Poetry readers like to be informed about life by poets.

Oscar Williams does well in his lines in painting a picture of an important scene. But he does not personalize it for the reader. He creates a distance which is brought closer, as in a camera close-up, "The night shining, the supper laid." Finally the supper is laid, implying that we, the readers, are being invited to the feast.

But prove it to us, Oscar. Is this the greatest feast of history, or not? The last supper? The last supper for what, before what? "the banging blinds of death?"

So Oscar Williams changes traditional imagery, as he liked to do in his poetry, into modern, similar imagery. This was his attempt to bring the contemporary person into the contemporary poem and see the reader's actual world as it actually is. Oscar Williams conveys to us that "the last supper" is still happening now, just as death is still happening now.

Is Oscar saying that while we live our lives all around us are "the banging blinds of death?" Is his message more mature and deeper than Dylan's? It would seem to be.

Yes, we must make our supper in this life despite death. But Oscar Williams, the poet, does not take it one step further and get involved, or get us involved, as Dylan Thomas got us involved in his poem and perspective. In fact in life, Oscar Williams was first asked by Dylan Thomas to arrange poetry readings for him. When Oscar did nothing, Dylan Thomas contacted Malcolm Brinnin.

As I knew my father, he tended not to get involved. He was not in contact with his feelings. He did not do feeling things like getting drunk or having mistresses, two of the things Dylan Thomas did. Oscar did not respond to others at a feeling level. Oscar Williams childhood trauma must have been so terrible that he chose the tough way of having no feelings to express. He was excited and condemnatory at how Dylan Thomas was treated in America. Yet, he had not come forward when he had the chance to help and protect Dylan, who knows why?

We leave it at that.