A Dark Alchemy of Words

Living on a boat has meant that we have had to make some difficult decisions about which books come with us onboard. Tonight, I introduce to you one of my most favourite friends on our bookshelf – the collected poems of Dylan Thomas – and explore why he holds such an important place in my life.

Journal entry:

“26h January, Wednesday.

A magpie on the top most branch rattles its greetings to the blurred dawn.
A blackbird calls.
The day begins with a bruised sky and bird song.”

Episode Information

If you are on Twitter, you can follow and watch ‘A Minutes Peace’ by clicking on https://twitter.com/minutes_peace. You can also watch them on Colin’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/colsey2003ify/videos

In this episode I read extracts from:

Matt Gaw’s informative and touchingly evocative exploration of darkness and the night in his (2020) Under the Stars: A journey into light published by Elliott and Thompson.

The following poems by Dylan Thomas:

‘The force that through green fuse drives the flower’
‘Lament’
‘Fern Hill’
‘Poem in October’

The episode concludes with a complete reading of his ‘In my craft or sullen art’.

More information about Nighttime on Still Waters

You can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com. It will also allow you to become more a part of the podcast and you can leave comments, offer suggestions, and reviews. You can even, if you want, leave me a voice mail by clicking on the microphone icon.

General Details

In the intro and the outro, Saint-Saen's The Swan is performed by Karr and Bernstein (1961) and available on CC at archive.org.
Two-stroke narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River Weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence.

Piano and keyboard interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorde

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