Dylan Thomas: America

As with many of Dylan Thomas' decisions to move around Britain, his first trip to America was in part determined by money. Or, rather, the lack of it.

He had harboured desires to travel there since the 1930s, but the Second World War prevented him. His poems were being published there, and he had a considerable stateside following.

Writing to the poet Oscar Williams in 1945, Dylan said: "The war, they say, is all over bar the dying; and when it is, I want to come over to America. How could I earn a living? I can read aloud, through sonorous asthma, with pomp; I can lecture on The Trend of Y, or X at the Crossroads, or Z: Whither? with lower case an assurance whose shiftiness can be seen only from the front row".

The answer wouldn't come for another five years. The poet John Malcolm Brinnin was an admirer of Dylan's writing, and invited him to give readings at the Poetry Center at New York's Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association.

The fee was $500 plus Dylan's air fare, and Brinnin additionally offered to sponsor further readings in colleges and universities across America. Naturally, Dylan agreed eagerly.

His main motivation was money. He calculated that, after the tour, he would be able to return to Laugharne for an uninterrupted year of writing. Nonetheless, it took a while for the plans to come to fruition, and he was forced to take more of the 'hack-jobs' - including radio programmes for the BBC - which he had grown to dislike.

On 20 February 1950 he flew to America. On this first tour he stayed for 100 days, though he initially seemed slightly bewildered at his surroundings. According to biographer Paul Ferris, "More than one of his hosts felt he might have been on the moon, for all he knew". However, he did take a shine to San Francisco and New York.

While it may have made him money, America did little to inspire Dylan's writing - he made few references to it in his writing. He did, however, take to the many bars and parties he was taken to. His outrageous behaviour at these events suggests he was eager to prove himself as a poet and was excessive due to nervousness.

The readings themselves were a great success, although Dylan's drinking gave them a certain edge which often led them to the edge disaster. Off-duty, too, he often behaved disgracefully. The first American tour paid Dylan well, but he saved little from it, and the bills that confronted him upon his return to Laugharne angered Caitlin, who saw little money from his jaunts.

For his second trip to America, in January 1952, she made sure she accompanied him. As ever, they made a volatile team, with Caitlin barely managing to limit Dylan's excesses. The trip lasted until May, by which time their financial crises had deepened.

Of his third trip to America, Caitlin accused him of wanting to go for "flattery, idleness and infidelity". She was largely correct. To placate her he arranged for it to last no longer than six weeks, and left in April 1953.

When he returned, his relationship with Caitlin had soured still more. Desperate to escape again, he made plans to leave once again. On 19 October he arrived for the last time, alone, in New York.