Knit a Poem Stanza St Andrews

Poetry in motion
There it was waiting to swaddle.
Left to right measurement: 13 metres (43 ft) at its widest point
Top to bottom measurement: 8.7 metres (28 ft) at its widest point
Number of squares: 1200+

The poem is the work of more than one thousand knitters and crocheters worldwide, who furiously clicked needles and hooks throughout September, to turn the individual letters of Thomas’s poem into colourful 12-inch squares.

Judith Palmer, Director of the Poetry Society, commented:

“We wanted to celebrate the Society’s centenary with a fun, grand-scale project in which many people could participate, that was about ‘poetry’ but also summoned up the idea of ‘society’, to reflect all the thousands of people who’ve kept the Society going since 1909. The time, commitment and creative skills that people have given to this enterprise has been overwhelming.”

Knitted poem strewn upon the floor in the town hall St Andrews.
Dylan Thomas
In My Craft or Sullen Art
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.

Copyright Dylan Thomas. Used by Permission of David Higham Associates.