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‘Poem in October’

 Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle
into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for
voices" Under Milk Wood (his radio play, posthumously in 1954).
 He also wrote stories and radio broadcasts such as A Child's Christmas in Wales and Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Dog (his autobiography, 1940)
 He became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in
New York City. By then, he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a
"roistering, drunken and doomed poet"
 Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales, in 1914
 He lived in the picturesque little seaside town of Laugharne, near the farm where he spent ,
many happy days as a child with his aunt. He later immortalised this farm through his poems
“After the Funeral” and “Fern Hill”
 His poetry is concerned itself with the bedrock facts of existence; birth, death, reproduction.
This kind of solitary musing is associated with romantic, and hence his poetry is called neo-
romantic poetry. Since it brooded on the ultimate facts and mysteries of existence, it is also
called apocalyptic verse.
 His poetry is compared to surrealistic poetry.
 His first collection of poetry is Eighteen Poems (1934), followed by Twenty-five Poems (1936),
The Map of Love (1939), Deaths and Entrances (1946), Adventures in Skin Trade (posthumously
in 1955)
 ‘Poem in October’ is a seven-stanza poem divided into ten-line sets. Thomas, as was his custom,
did not adopt a specific rhyme pattern. However, there are a few instances where end sounds
are unified by the use of half rhyme. In stanza three, the words “rolling” and “whistling” have a
consonant rhyme. In stanza five, the end words “summer” and “mother” rhyme in the same
way. There are moments of assonance, or rhymes that rely on vowel sounds, in these words
that rely on consonants to rhyme. One such example is the first stanza’s use of the terms
“heron” and “beckon.”
 While there is no rhyme or rhythm scheme to tie the poem’s stanzas together, the lines are
obviously similar in length and indentation. When one looks at the lines on the page, this is a
feature that stands out. There are three lengthier lines followed by two extremely short lines.
In each stanza, these are followed by two more long lines, two more short lines, and one last
long line. They cause the reader’s eye to wander back and forth across the page, maybe
replicating the rise and fall of waves, the “wringing” of rain, or the speaker’s ascent up the hill.
The complete poem can be found here.

Brief summary

The poem tells of a speaker’s journey out of autumn and up a hill to reclaim childhood joy, the
summer season and his spirituality. The poem begins with the speaker stating that he was thirty years
old when he wrote this. It was his birthday and he chose to go on a walk. He left his home, travelled
alongside the water’s edge, listened to the seabirds and the woods.
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The speaker left the town behind and began a climb up a nearby hill. As he rose the town shrank. At
the same time the season began to change. Autumn, and its cool air, faded away and the summer
returned. The rain continued as he climbed, as did the presence of birds. These two images are crucial
to the speaker’s understanding of happiness and childhood.

When he finally got to the top of the hill it was like he had reached heaven. He was far above the
coolness of autumn and he became absorbed with memories of his childhood. The speaker recalled
coming to his place with his mother and what it meant to him them. He hoped while on the hill that
the joy he experienced will last throughout the year. Perhaps he will return to reclaim it when he
turns thirty-one.

Stanza wise analysis

In the first stanza of ‘Poem in October’ the speaker begins by stating that he was thirty years old. He
describes his age in years of progress towards death, or heaven. Now that he’s thirty, he’s thirty years
closer to death than he was when he was born. The next lines are perfect examples of the creative way
that Thomas utilized nouns and adjectives. He described the shore as being “Priested” by herons. They
are everywhere, lording over a land that is given a spiritual quality through Thomas’ choice to use
“Priested” rather than another word such as “ruled.”

This is one of the many sights and sounds that Thomas’ speaker woke up to on this particular
morning. There was also the harbour to hear and the “neighbour wood.” From there he might hear the
sounds of the leaves rustling, or small animals running and walking.

These sounds are pleasing to the speaker’s ear. They “beckon” or call him from his bed out into the
world. Just like the morning, the water is personified in the next lines. It is said to be “praying.” The
waves dip and rise, as if kneeling in prayer. The scene, like many of those to follow, is overwhelming.
There are sights and sounds, all of which the speaker wants to take in. These include the sounds of
seabirds calling and the sound of boats knocking again the “webbed wall” of the dock.

It is at the end of these lines that the speaker declares he “set foot” in that “moment.” The town was
“still sleeping” but as has been made abundantly clear, the rest of the world is not. What one is not
sure of at this point is where the speaker is going.

In the Stanza Two, the speaker reminds the reader that it was his birthday. He turned thirty years old
and he is going on a kind of celebratory walk. He takes note of the “water-/Birds” again and those
which fly into and around the trees. They all seem to be centred around him, “flying” his “name”
around the surrounding “farms and the white horses.” It is interesting that the speaker chose to
introduce the farmland and the horses at this point. The setting is somewhat jumbled, as if the speaker
is actually recalling a number of landscapes and weaving them together. Alternatively, the “white
horses” could refer to the waves themselves.

The speaker is ready to pursue this walk for a while longer and rises in the “rainy autumn” to
“walk…abroad.” He also explains how his movements impact the world around him. Just as he is
getting up the waves crash and the heron “dived” into the sea. In the final lines of this section the
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speaker leaves behind the town. He speaks of a “border” he has to cross and “gates” he has to open.
Whether these are real or not, they were previously an impediment to his leaving the enclosed area.
Now they are not. Just his place in the town closes behind him, the town begins to wake up.

In the Stanza Three, the area is completely alive and more like summer of spring than autumn. He
expands this idea by referring to the “sun of October” as “Summery,” or like summer. It sits on the
“hill’s shoulder,” another instance of personification. Now that one has progressed this far into the
piece the reasoning behind Thomas’ constant use of personification makes sense. He wanted to make
the entire world seem alive and relatable to the reader.

He describes the area as playing host to “fond climates and sweet singers.” The speaker mentions the
birds again in these lines, as well as the “rain.” These are two of the main images of the poem which
crop up again and again. The birds, just as they have in the previous stanzas, “Come in the morning.”
They turn up in the same area the speaker walked in and wandered in. He takes note of the wind that
wrings the rain and blows “cold / In the wood faraway” underneath him. The use of the word
“faraway” is interesting in these lines. The wind and rain are present, under him, but are also far from
him. This can be understood in an alternative, more ephemeral way. The rain is far, in that it is
“dreamlike” or mentally distant. This is more suitable to Thomas’ language and the setting he has
created

In the Stanza Four, the speaker returns again to the rain. It is now described as “Pale” and hanging
over the “dwindling harbour.” He continues his progress up the hill. He gets farther and farther from
the boats and dock where he began. The next lines are a pleasing jumble of images that are
characteristic of Dylan Thomas

He is far beyond the boundaries of the town now and has stepped into his own nature inspired dream.
It is a place in which he can “marvel” over the gardens of spring and summer. They are blooming “in
the tall tales.” This gives the reader a hint about the reality of this word the speaker is describing. It is
a “tall tale,” or a lie, not a real place he can actually explore.

The last lines of stanza five speak on how on the hill he could “marvel” at the “weather” but, as soon as
he got up there it began to move off.

In Stanza Five is another reference in ‘Poem in October’ to the autumn turning into the summer. The
speaker is consumed by the joy of the day, which is only enhanced by the beauty of the landscape.
When he looks around him he can see all the wonders of summer. He remembers all the times he’s
been here before, as a child. His memories are coming back to him of a time when the world was made
of colour. There are “red currants” and “green chapels.” Everything was vivid and pure.

He remembers the mornings he came to the same hill with his “mother.” The speaker walked “through
parables.” These are stories that have an underlying moral or spiritual lesson. They appear
throughout the Bible and connected immediate to the “green chapels” in line ten. It is not clear why
the speaker remembers the chapel as being green, perhaps because of the green landscape they were
situated in.
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As the poem nears its end in Stanza Six the speaker dives deeper into his memories. He sees himself
as being so different from the boy that they are separate people. He remembers the “his tears burned
[his] cheeks.” The speaker feels the young boy’s heart as distant from his own. Through these lines the
speaker is making clear that although he has returned to this place and is again experiencing joy, it is
nothing compared to the “truth of…joy” he knew during the “Summertime” of his youth.

The “dead” of his past, the days of summer he can no longer reach, remind him of what his life used to
be and the relationship he had with the world. The world sang with “the mystery.” This is a kind of
spiritual connection that the speaker stopped valuing as he aged. He remembers it now and sees it
being contained specifically within the “water and singing birds.” While meditating on the changes the
have come over the man since his youth, the lines are not at all depressing in tone. They are as
uplifting and celebratory as all those which proceeded them.

Stanza Seven consists the last ten lines of ‘Poem in October’ which depict how the “joy” of his
childhood returned to him on this thirtieth birthday and what that meant to the speaker. He was able
on his birthday to go to this place. As it did previously, the weather turns around. He is under the sun
and experiencing how the,

Important Themes of the Poem

The Welsh Origins

Dylan Thomas’ Welsh heritage is a prominent theme in his work. He settled in southwest Wales, in
Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire, now known as Ceredigion, regions that drew him throughout his
life. Initially viewed as a Romantic and a “provincial,” Thomas’ poetry was thought to be influenced by
the Welsh language, its rhythms, and the Bardic tradition. For example, in his book Welsh Dylan:
Dylan Thomas’s Life, Writing, and His Wales (1980), John Ackerman saw his poetry as the product of a
strongly individual imagination fostered by Welsh ways of thought and feeling and distinguished by
its lyrical quality, strict formal control, a romantic conception of the poet’s function, and a religious
attitude toward experience. Ackerman cites three ways in which his Welsh heritage influenced his
poetry. First, there was the direct and unavoidable influence of a specific community with specific
traditions, such as the bardic tradition; second, there was the influence of other Welshmen writing in
English (Thomas did not speak Welsh) and who helped to create a national consciousness, a sense of a
life that was unique to Wales. Thomas gained access to a community of ideas from Welsh culture
through these connections. According to Ackerman, the third effect of the Welsh background on
Thomas was the cultural tradition that existed in and through the Welsh language.

Identity Issues in the Face of Changes Caused by Time:

Dylan Thomas’s poetry also documents the pain of World War II. “Poem in October” was published in
the collection Deaths and Entrances (1946) and is significant because it contrasts with the majority of
the other poems in the collection, which reveal vivid accounts of Germany’s bombing of London
during the War. It explores the terrible entry of the war into people’s ordinary, private lives, as well as
the ramifications for the poetic self. Given this, the poem appears to be occupied by a sense of
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nostalgia for the past in the face of unfathomable horror. Despite its pastoral and serene tone, the
poem has an elegiac tone that questions the happiness linked with birthdays because they bring us
closer to death. Given the volume’s abundance of death and general tone of sadness, the poem
concludes on a hopeful note regarding the poet’s function in such a situation:

“O may my heart’s truth

Still be sung

On this high hill in a year’s turning.”

The title of the volume “Deaths and Entrances” is vividly reflected in “Poem in October” by the
continuous allusions to “turning” as the poet departs from the bounds of the town to climb up the hill,
only to return to the town.

An Idea of Modernism

Thomas is also associated with Modernism. The sceneries and imagery, as well as the hallucinatory
effect of the visions he inspires in his poetry, appear to approach surrealism, which is more linked
with modernist writers’ imaginative and psychological studies. While the Surrealists achieved this
effect by the arbitrary or irrational juxtaposition of pictures, Thomas, even when employing an
interior landscape of the mind, picked, controlled, and developed his images into a conscious poetic
order that served an aesthetic function. Davies, on the other hand, claims that Thomas has affinities
with modernism in that he believed in “concreteness of presentation,” which Davies describes as “the
final barrier that Modernism…had placed against any return to Victorian discursiveness or Georgian
descriptiveness” (Davies in Goodby and Wigginton: 115). Second, Thomas exhibits a form of self-
consciousness in his use of language, which is another fundamental Modernist characteristic: “the
conscious foregrounding of language as language, language itself as theme, within poems.”