"In my craft or sullen art" is a poem by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, first published in Deaths and Entrances (1946). The poem describes a poet who must write for the sake of his craft rather than for any material gains. The speaker is not Thomas himself; Thomas never wrote at night and performed on TV and tours as his "trade".

Text

In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms, I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of their most secret heart. Not for the proud man apart From the raging moon I write On these spindrift pages Nor for the towering dead With their nightingales and psalms But for the lovers, their arms Round the griefs of the ages, Who pay no praise or wages Nor heed my craft or art.

Cultural Influences

In 2009, the London-based Poetry Society used the poem for their "Knit A Poem" project. Each letter of the poem was charted and knit onto a square by volunteers. More than 850 volunteers from all over the world participated, and the finished poem was unveiled in front of the British Library in London. The poem has been set to music as a tone poem by Thomas Hewitt Jones (2008) and read in full in the song "Midnight Hour" by Perth County Conspiracy (1970, on The Perth County Conspiracy Does Not Exist). A phrase from the poem was also adopted as the title of the 1971 film The Raging Moon by Bryan Forbes.