DYLAN THOMAS IN AMERICA
SIR,—I notice Mr. Hunter's suggestion that I had not read Mr. Brinnin's book and had, therefore, failed to notice his reference to Dylan Thomas having 'finished' Under Milk Wood in America. The accusation of my neglect of a reviewer's duty is untrue. I had read the book close', enough to relate the relevant facts, as Hunter does not seem to have done, Mr. Brinnin indicates that Dylan ThOI1 brought the manuscript unfinished to Amerie3: 'finished' it there—but still had not finished It when he returned to America in the fol owieLt year. Under Milk Wood was written in Eng' land. Thomas added a temporary ending the unfinished portion on one trip; returned to England, destroyed that ending, and conr pleted it, all but the few corrections—certaiell not as much as a hundred words—he Ode on the visit to New York in the course °f
which he died. -
Mr. Brinnin's description of ThoMas work' ing' does not accord, with the poet's working habits in England. Certainly he could welt° out his laundry list in America: he could even botch on to Under Milk Wood a closing Pas sage with which he was so dissatisfied that he destroyed it. He could not, however, work °,15 he understood work, and as his readers will' understand it. Even the best of Under Mill Wood does not equal his poetry in intens0 On the other hand, the suggestion that I e '415 burnt out as a poet does not accord with the poems of in Country Sleep still in slow Pe°,
nOL
gress up to his death. Did Mr. Hunter note Mrs. Thomas's letter to Mr. Brin ie t° the effect that all her husband wanted was to work at his poetry? The suggestion that a poet was 'fit *shed' when he died is cruel because the dead P°ct cannot defend himself. He is finished, etc' tainly, by death; but until Dylan Thomas 05 dead the accusation was never made.—Youe5 faithfully, JOHN ARO° JOHN ARO°
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