'Discovered' at the age of nineteen through a poetry competition in a London newspaper, Dylan Thomas became the object of immediate acclaim and criticism for his adventurous language and resonant verse. His famously reckless lifestyle belied his deep seriousness - manifest in his imaginative fascination with youth and his continual marvelling at the mysteries of life and death. Along with startling images of pain and violence, Thomas's poetry and prose embrace touching childhood reminiscence and a spiritual yearning from which he emerges, not as the loud bohemian of the personal legend, but as the careful and reflective artist of the poems, stories and broadcasts themselves. 'At poor peace I sing/To you strangers'