Poetry Response March 22 Villanelle

Britton Woodall

Jernigan

English AP

22 March 2011

Rage Against the Machine

            The poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” reminds me of my grandfather. I saw him for the last time over thanksgiving a few years back. He rested on a hospital bed exhausted and hardly able to keep his eyes open to see his family. Yet the minute I flew into Austin, Texas and he knew, he began scheming ways for me to sneak him out of the hospital “to get some McDonald’s and a sweet tea.” Over that week a saw an old man, my grandfather, “rage against the dying of the light.”

            Despite the fact that the Dylan Thomas, the poet, obviously speaks to his father as he slowly dies, I understand the emotion he feels even though my relation is not as close. I know the wish to will a loved one on to life, yet understand “men at their end know the dark is right.” It remained clear that his time had come whether or not anyone wanted it that way.

            He, in the tamest way, reminds me of a “wild man” mentioned in the poem. He lived his life as a mild mannered golfer and father, yet his wit and lifestyle choice remain unparalleled (except of course to Charlie Sheen). He had a keen appetite for sweets. I cannot recall a homemade milkshake that tasted quite like his. I also have never heard of a man after his second stroke hiding peanut Eminem’s from his family trying to take care of him. He drove his car with only the use of one arm and one leg due to the strokes and recited “The Cremation of Sam McGee” from memory. He died the same way he lived, he “[did] not go gently into that good night.”