Dylan Thomas was born on 27 October 1914 in Swansea in Wales. He began writing poetry in high school.
Dylan Thomas is regarded as one of the near-legendary figures in the history of 20th-century poetry. His personal charisma, lyric poetry and beautiful voice made him popular on both sides of the Atlantic, where he conducted many reading tours. Thomas' tempestuous Bohemian life and abuse of alcohol, however, resulted in an early death. Critics have been divided over the value of Thomas' oeuvre, and many feel that his reputation was inflated during his brief lifetime, but Thomas' poems and short stories remain popular, including his 1960 Collected Poems.