SOURCE: Thomas, Gareth. “A Freak User of Words.” In Dylan Thomas: Craft or Sullen Art, edited by Alan Bold, pp. 65-88. London, England: Vision Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Gareth Thomas explores Thomas's writings from a linguistic perspective.

In a letter to Pamela Hansford Johnson, dated 9 May 1934, the precocious 19-year-old Dylan Thomas confessed his doubts and fears about his abilities as a poet:

My lines, all my lines, are of the tenth intensity. They are not the words that express what I want to express; they are the only words I can find that come near to expressing a half. And that's no good. I'm a freak user of words, not a poet. That's really the truth. No self-pity there. A freak user of words, not a poet. That's terribly true.¹

Such anguish over the impossibility of nailing down human experience with mere words is hardly uncommon, and...