before blog
looking like the proper

The ironic thing about me and my name is that I actually look quite like Dylan Thomas (before you wonder, I was born three years after his death!). I’ve been stopped a couple of times in the street by people who apparently used to know him, who’ve commented on it. Ironically I’ve always been drunk when this has happened!

I do think his poetry is absolutely superb; it has an immense depth that I haven’t found elsewhere—which is probably a comment on my lack of reading rather than an insult to other poets. Have you heard the recordings of him reading his poems? Talk about oomph….

The only poet who has struck as deep a chord in me as him is Sappho; I find it most frustrating that most of her work has been lost—and, of course, my reading of her poems are totally dependent on the translation.