Dylan Thomas - Memorials

Memorials

See also: Cultural depictions of Dylan Thomas

In Swansea's maritime quarter are the Dylan Thomas Theatre, home of the Swansea Little Theatre of which Thomas was once a member, and the former Guildhall built in 1825 and now occupied by the Dylan Thomas Centre, a literature centre, where exhibitions and lectures are held and setting for the annual Dylan Thomas Festival. Outside the centre stands a bronze statue of Thomas, by John Doubleday. Another monument to Thomas stands in Cwmdonkin Park, one of his favourite childhood haunts, close to his birthplace. The memorial is a small rock in an enclosed garden within the park inscribed with the closing lines from "Fern Hill":

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Thomas' home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, is a museum run by Carmarthenshire County Council. Thomas' writing shed is also preserved. In 2004 the Dylan Thomas Prize was created in his honour, awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30. In 2005 the Dylan Thomas Screenplay Award was established. The prize, administered by the Dylan Thomas Centre, is awarded at the annual Swansea Bay Film Festival. In 1982 a plaque was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.

A bronze statue to mark the centenary of Thomas' birth, by Welsh sculptor Peter Nicholas, is planned for 2014.

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