I was first introduced to the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" when I saw the movie, Dangerous Minds (Whoever said Hollywood has no redeeming qualities?). It was inspiring to see disadvantaged kids awaken to the beauty and hope of poetry. The poem is deeply moving with its simple but powerful message. Many of us who have lost a loved one can relate to what Thomas is saying to his dying father. Fight for every breath of life and don't you dare give up. We're only given this one brief life and every fleeting moment is precious. You are loved and I will fight to keep you, so you fight too. But, of course, the poet's message is not intended solely for his father.
             The poem is structured in the form of a "villanelle." A villanelle is a tightly structured poem made up of nineteen lines. The first five stanzas have three lines each and the final stanza four lines. A villanelle has only two rhyming sounds in the entire poem. In Thomas' poem, for example, every line must rhyme with either night or day (corresponding with the poet's central theme of death versus life). The first and third lines of the first stanza are alternately repeated to form the last line of the second through fifth stanzas. The first and third lines of the first stanza then comprise the final two lines of the concluding stanza.
             In the first of the poem's six stanzas, Thomas beseeches his father not to give in easily to what may seem the welcome prospect of death, that is, not to "go gentle into that good night." The elderly near death should stay active and passionate ("burn and rave at close of day"). They should in fact protest bitterly life coming to an end and "rage against the dying of the light." In the following four stanzas, Thomas will exhort his father to cling to life by using examples of four types of men who fight in the face of death though each might also have reasons to give up.
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