17 pages • 34 minutes read
In My Craft or Sullen Art
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Symbols & Motifs
The Full Moon
In this poem, setting is important. The poet/speaker writes at night, lit by the full moon that is immediately personified as something that “rages” (Line 3) and casts a “singing light” (Line 6). Endowing the moon with the ability to produce emotive noise makes this celestial object into a symbol of artistic creation. Its self-expression inspires the poet, calling to mind the ancient Greek idea of the muses—divine beings from whom comes all artistic ideation.
Because the moon is a nighttime phenomenon, it is traditionally linked to the concepts of mystery and obscurity. The poem evokes these associations when its speaker confirms that he is composing despite being uncertain whether anyone will ever read what he labors over. Just as he is alone and only partially illuminated by the nighttime lighting, so too will be remain shrouded in obscurity after his writing is forgotten. However, this knowledge does little to muffle the intensity of his “labour” (Line 6), which separates him from the normal activity of nighttime—all other people, he imagines, “lie abed” (Line 4). Under the encouragement of the full moon, the poet writes on, revealing the hidden to an audience that possibly doesn’t exist.
Spindrift
“In My Craft or Sullen Art” contains an image of despair that counters the typical boasts or declarations of other poems. While typical ars poetica works consider the immortality or fame that producing writing bestows, the speaker of Dylan Thomas’s poem affirms that his “labour” (Line 6) may be for nothing. He compares the paper on which he works to “spindrift” (Line 14), the ephemeral mist that blows off churning ocean waves far out at sea—glittery and sparkly, but insubstantial and quickly lost.
Within the ars poetica tradition, poets traditionally celebrate the value and endurance of their craft. In a world of confusion and mayhem, art offers reliable permanence—it survives, endures, and triumphs. This is a source of hope for artists who often ply their trade in isolation, unknown and forlorn: The bowl of fruit rots in days; a painting of it will grace museum walls for centuries.
Thomas disagrees. Not only does he dismiss “the towering dead” (Line 15) for whom he refuses to write, but he rejects the money, fame, or success that could accompany publication. He writes instead to connect to readers who necessarily will ignore his work: lovers whose self-absorption means they cannot offer him “praise or wages / Nor heed [his] craft or art” (Line 19-20). It may all be spindrift.
The Writing Desk
A poem’s canonized presence in classroom anthologies, journals, or websites masks the uncertainty with which it was produced. Few readers imagine the poet determined to compel their thoughts into a poem’s lines—though in contrast, writers typically project their idealized readership.
Thomas highlights the process of poetry creation, showing that poems do not suddenly appear but must be willed into existence by toil that takes place at a specific piece of furniture: While at night, most people “lie abed” (Line 4), the poet lingers at his desk channeling “singing light” (Line 6) of “the raging moon” (Line 13) into words. The poem thus takes the reader behind the scenes, to the place where a poem is conceived. The desk where the speaker works is neither fantastical nor mystical; the fruits of its occupant could conceivably result in worldly goods and material success—the “ambition or bread” (Line 7) that the speaker rejects to be motivated by. This practicality of setting and purpose explains why the work of writing is described as “labour” (Line 6) and “craft” (Line 1)—words that connote blue-collar effort and artisanal expertise.
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Related Titles
By Dylan Thomas
