One of my earliest memories of the power of a poem was from a skiing magazine. The lines, “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing…” from Poe’s poem, The Raven, has stuck with me for its power. And it fits with so many situations. I should have recognized the poem’s origins as a young teenager, but likely I’d read the poem, and passed quickly over the words. I need the concept, and the main lines, but hadn’t slowed to take in the subtlety of verses. Quoted lines often get separated from their origins, and reused in many different fashions, including here, in an issue of Powder, as a skier peered over the precipice of a drop into a deep couloir.

Do not go gentle into that good night

I had the privilege of having a grandfather who memorized by heart many poems, most with folksy rhyme and frontier charm. And I remember in high school being assigned the memorization of Annabel Lee Lee, another of Edgar Allen Poe‘s famous poems. I’ve always thought it would be fun to carry on the tradition of the spoken, memorized poem; it’s a challenge that can only be accomplished by really reading and understanding a poem. Slowing down and taking in every line. You don’t “go gently” into the assignment.

I always like poetry and poems, especially as ways to establish theme. As I’m working through my first draft of my novel, I think of this, and what poetic structure, I can give the chapters. You don’t want to be didactic; subtlety is much better here. But I do see, with this shop, with my novel, with my art, everything starting to align. And with that, as I prepare myself for the tasks ahead, I’m going to leave her the Dylan Thomas poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.