Center memorializes Dylan Thomas

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MCT) - "Do not go gentle into that good night,

"Old age should burn and rave at close of day.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

SWANSEA, Wales _ That passage, written by Dylan Thomas when his father was terminally ill, is among the Welsh poet's most enduring.

Visitors to the Dylan Thomas Centre in his hometown of Swansea will see that and other of Thomas' more remarkable passages displayed largely, as well as bits of biographical writing: "I wanted to write poetry in the beginning because I had fallen in love with words. I cared for the colours the words cast on my eyes."

The center's exhibit area offers a small number of artifacts, including a work sheet on which Thomas crafted a poem, showing where he deleted and substituted words. The center also addresses Thomas' death in 1953 in New York at age 40, attributed to chronic alcohol poisoning.

The Dylan Thomas Centre serves as Swansea's literature center, and admission is free.

After marriage, Thomas lived in Laugharne, 40 miles west of Swansea. His home there, called the Boat House, is open to visitors. Thomas is buried in Laugharne in the village courtyard.

Swansea, a seaport town of 228,000, is also the hometown of Catherine Zeta Jones, and Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton were born in Port Talbot, 10 miles east of Swansea.

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© 2008, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.