"The Story We Know" Activities

Activity One

Dylan Thomas, a Welsh poet, wrote a villanelle in response to his father's death. Compare "The Story We Know" with Thomas's "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.

How does each villanelle deal with the concept of death?

Activity Two

Martha Collins uses cataloguing throughout "The Story We Know." How does this cataloguing compare with her use of cataloging in another of her poems, "cut?"

cut

a short, across, through neighbors’ yards,

down alleys, under fences, in order to get

there, not to miss, to see or maybe even

participate, as if to redeem some slight

or grievous, recent or old, as if to repair

the oldest of all, the one that made us,

freed of that water, breathers of air,

bearers of darkness, incomplete, in need

of another, eye to see, ear to hear,

to save in a jar, a drawer, off, a body

claimed, partaken of, ours, and later

down, if the body held, from bridge

or tree or arch, loose, removed from us

by us, expunged, end of scene, away