On the Tenth Day . . .

. . . of Christmas, it's time to focus on some seasonal literature. I suppose in the last week or so, many of you watched or heard bits and pieces of the film, A Christmas Story, during its annual television broadcast by Turner Classic Movies. Its author, Jean Shepherd, was a wonderful storyteller, humorist, and radio personality who left us with enduring images of growing up in America in the '20s, '30s and '40s.

While Shepherd spent his childhood in the Midwest, the poet and writer, Dylan Thomas, grew up in Swansea and the surrounding farmlands of south Wales. In his brief life - he died at 39 - Thomas would turn experience and observation into some of the most beautiful and lyrical imagery ever written in the English language. Two years after his death in 1953, his story, A Child's Christmas in Wales, appeared in print.

Although both men approached their craft from very different perspectives in terms of geography as well as style, each has left us with an enduring story of Christmas. Shepherd's work is easily accessible, but Thomas's is obscure, if not lost, to most Americans. To rectify the issue, here is a reading - the first of two parts - of A Child's Christmas in Wales.



I would be doing my readers a great disservice if I did not include a sample of Thomas reading his work. Here he is reading the villanelle, Do not go gentle into that good night, probably his most remembered work.



The lilting expression is unforgettable. No wonder he dazzled Americans with his readings. Where is that craft today?