Straight Down the Hatch: Dylan Thomas and the Poetry of Excess

Lou just bought Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s 3-LP live opus, Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends – Ladies and Gentlemen.  Even the title of the LP is long and ponderous.  Lou will listen to this album once and let it disappear into the stacks never to be heard again.  How has Lou’s record collecting come to this?  Well, in the beginning was the end.  In the end was the beginning.  Something like that.  As always, don’t quote Lou.  Lou does not memorize poetry by heart and hasn’t since the ninth grade when he recited “The Walrus and the Carpenter” in English class with a friend.  Dirty little secret alert.  Lou does not like poetry readings.  It is in the same category as live music.  When Lou was dating his wife-to-be, he took her to a poetry reading by Bill Berkson.  She fell asleep.  And Lou fell in love.  She has a strong bullshit detector.  Whenever she sees something pretentious and tedious, she says, “The emperor has no clothes” and walks away disgusted.  ELP has no clothes.  Often Lou is buck naked as well.

In the beginning that foreshadowed the end, Lou collected spoken word LPs even though Lou much preferred reading poetry and reading about poetry in books.  Like with ELP, Lou would get a spoken word LP, listen to it once, and file it away.  Lou loves this stuff, he does honest; he just doesn’t love listening to it.  It gives Lou a case of the tireds.  Lou’s poetry friends always tell Lou when he is underwhelmed by a poet that you must hear it read aloud.  Maybe so.  Like with wine and liquor and most things sophisticated, Lou just may not have the palate for it.

Lou loves himself some Charles Olson.  He is one of Lou’s favorite poets.  The legend is that Olson was a force of nature.  A big man, literally and figuratively.  To hear Olson talk was life-changing and exhausting.   Lou has the Folkways LP of Olson reading some of The Maximus Poems.  Lou has listened to it.  Not for Lou.  Just give Lou his first editions of The Maximus Poems published by Jonathan Williams’ Jargon Press, with the oversized pages and tons of empty space.  That is the stuff.  Sitting in a comfy chair with the Jargon open on Lou’s lap on a blistery winter’s day.  Lou is here for it.  He does not have to hear it.  He does not want to hear it.

There are exceptions.  To be honest, Olson is one.  Lou enjoys listening to Olson read “Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 [withheld]” on YouTube.  That gives Lou the tingles.  For Lou’s money the best readers on the poetry scene were the core Beats: Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac.  They were all wonderful and compelling performers.  It could be argued that for all three of them, their LPs are among the most important items in their bibliography.  Call Me Burroughs, Ginsberg reading “Howl”, and the Kerouac and Steve Allen LP are all pivotal in establishing the popular reputations of these writers.  This is not emperor’s new clothes; this is laying the soul bare.  

Then there are Bukowski readings.  Buk was a born performer even if he is largely playing to the audience.  It is an act and Lou loves it.  Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac.  Lou would have loved to see all these guys live, but maybe Bukowski most of all.  Which gets Lou to thinking about what would be the one poetry reading in history Lou would have liked to attend?  Probably the first Dada performance at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich on February 5, 1916.  God knows how many times Lou has read about this influential event, but it always sounds like a hoot and gives Lou a serious case of FOMO.  

Talking of Bukowski and thinking of the poet as rock star, Dylan Thomas was there first.  Maybe Byron was there first.  Or even Homer.  In the beginning was the end.  By all accounts Thomas was a dynamic performer.  He was also a world-class drunk. Lou does not know what he was most famous for.  For Lou it was the drinking.  Lou made the pilgrimage to The White Horse Tavern in New York City, largely because Dylan Thomas drank there.  Lou loves himself a literary bar.  It is like Disneyland for a boozehound.  A tourist attraction to drink in more than a place to actually drink.  For what it is worth, when Lou is in New York City, he makes a beeline for Milano’s.  Early.  When it opens and then he is out by the time all the NYU and evening crowd flood in.  Drinking in a bar in the morning.  There is nothing like it, particularly at a dive bar like Milano’s where the early crowd is putting in work.  The Vogue had a copy of the 2-LP Dylan Thomas Reading His Complete Recorded Poetry on Caedmon Records.  Not for Lou.  If a Bukowski reading is like hitting a beer funnel, then Thomas sounds to Lou like a spot of sherry during a professor’s office hours.  Pretty tame stuff.  He speaks to a lot of people.  And the right people.  Like Robert Zimmerman.  Lou will take Zimmerman’s word for it.  He has impeccable taste.

Dylan Thomas heads up a lengthy line of doomed creatives.  This is an ancient and storied tradition.  A strong voice and a love for strong booze.  This is universal but it is also decidedly Welsh.  An ancient and storied ethnic group.  Think Richard Burton.  Then there is Anthony Hopkins and Michael Sheen.  If you are a Welsh actor, you must recite Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle blah blah blah”.  It is a requirement of citizenship. Like having a passport.  Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey are Welsh.  Belters.  Golden throats.  This is a Welsh thing.  The Welsh go large and are larger than life.

Tragedy then farce.  If Dylan Thomas is the tragedy; Sandro Ford is the farce.  From doomed poet to stand-up comedian and YouTuber.  As Thomas drank himself to death, he famously stated something to the effect of “I have had 18 whiskies.  I think that is a record.”  Sandro with his “What I Drink in a Day” videos is the modern-day Dylan Thomas.  That deep Welsh voice of Thomas and Richard Burton has become Sandro’s trademark yip as he proclaims, “Lovely” while drinking his eighteenth Stella.  “Straight down the hatch!”  Lou does not know how often he has watched Sandro and his crew on a rampage.  Too much.  Same with Lou’s drinking.  Too much.  Sandro must-watch YouTube for Lou.  If Lou is ever in Wales, he will no doubt be on the lookout for Sandro.  Not to drink with him.  That would be suicide, but merely to watch him in action.  Like an elephant in a zoo.  Dylan Thomas experienced this.  Bukowski experienced this.  Burroughs experienced this.  Kerouac too.  To be expected to perform the myth in public at all times.  They all happened to be great performers of their work at public readings as well.  Perhaps performing in public drives you to excess.  It is deadly.  Is it that they are exposed and vulnerable or that they are lying straight to your face?  You mustdrink or drug to handle the embarrassment and shame of playing the fool.  Like dancing at a wedding.  Maybe that is why Lou does not listen to his spoken word LPs; it would merely drive Lou to drink, and the day-to-day drag of life does that already,and there is only so much beer Lou can drink in a day.  That said maybe it’s time Lou went back to the beginning and gave all his spoken word a re-listen.  Drink in these great writers.  Straight down the hatch.  Lovely.

Suggested Sites and Sounds:

The Big O:  Charles Olson reads 'Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 [withheld]' (Mar 1966)

Obligated:  Burton:  Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight. By Dylan Thomas. Read By Richard Burton. 720p HD

Obligated: Hopkins:  Poetry: "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas ‖ Sir Anthony Hopkins

Obligated:  Sheen:  Michael Sheen performs 'Do not go gentle into that good night' by Dylan Thomas

Kerouac on The Steve Allen Show:  JACK KEROUAC on THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW with Steve Allen 1959

Bukowski Hostage to His Own Myth:  Bukowski - Hostage

What I Drink in a Day:  What I Drink In A Day! Maesteg Sunday Sesh #pub #downthehatch #bar - YouTube

— Lou Waxman