Dylan Thomas in New York

The New York Times reports that a gaggle of events are sheduled, uh, we mean, scheduled, for this weekend in celebration of the centenary of Dylan Thomas's birth. Yup! 100 years ago: October 27th, 1914. The events include a reading of "Under Milk Wood," which premiered at the 92nd St. Y in 1953, and "Dylan Thomas in America: A Centennial Exhibition," which opens on Sunday at the Poetry Center. From the Times:

In New York, the city where Thomas achieved rock-star status and spiraled downward in spectacular fashion to an early death, the Poetry Center has organized “Dylan Thomas in America: A Centennial Exhibition,” which opens on Sunday, and a new production of his radio play “Under Milk Wood,” which had its premiere at the Y in May 1953. It will also present a new production of “Under Milk Wood,” directed by Michael Sheen, the Welsh actor known best in the United States for his starring roles in “Frost/Nixon” and the “The Masters of Sex.” Mr. Sheen and five other actors will take the stage in the Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall, where “Under Milk Wood” had its debut, with Mr. Sheen reading the same parts that Thomas did, in a performance that will be broadcast live by BBC Radio Wales.

A poetic comet streaked across American skies in the winter of 1950. Dylan Thomas, invited by the Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y, touched down at Idlewild Airport and headed straight for the airport bar to get a much-needed double Scotch and soda. Then, without further ado, he set about seducing audiences from coast to coast.

At a time when poetry readings were much less common than they are today, he stumped from city to city, college town to college town, reciting, in a mellifluous, actorly voice, his favorites by Yeats and Hardy and Lawrence, or Americans like John Crowe Ransom and Theodore Roethke, before beginning a selection of his own poems. When contemporary poets set forth on reading tours today, they follow the trail he blazed.

“He was fierce and magical, in his voice and in his presence,” said the poet Robert Kelly, who heard Thomas at City College. “He did not read like the usual poets of the day, looking at the ceiling as if communing with God, or Tennyson. He was speaking, it seemed, from his heart. He made people realize that poetry was exciting, that there was a thrill in it. I can still hear that voice.” [...]

Read on at The New York Times.