Julian’s Stories: Thomas, Eliot, Owen Thursday, 4 February 2010

I have a terrible memory for chunks of text, so can mostly only remember a few lines or snippets that have stayed with me over the years. At secondary school, I remember ‘studying’ “Under Milk Wood”. I was immediately hooked by the music of Dylan’s words,

To begin at the beginning …

starless and bible-black …

the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.

Since then, poetry has become much more important to me, so I find it easier to retain classic lines like

When the evening is spread out against the sky.

Like a patient etherized upon a table

but I still find it impossible to remember whole poems. My solution is to take advantage of digital technology, therefore on my iPhone I permanently carry this lot:

Lovesong of J.A. Prufrock read by T.S. Eliot

Dylan Thomas “Caedmon Collection” (11 CDs)

The Essential Dylan Thomas Richard Burton Reads Dylan Thomas Under Milk Wood (Read by Richard Burton)

Richard Burton Reads John Donne

Richard Burton Reads Thomas Hardy

Night Mail by WH Auden read by John Grierson

Richard Burton Reads Wilfred Owen, from which other favourite lines include,from Owen’s “Arms and the Boy:”

… his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.