What/who does Dylan Thomas say he is NOT writing his poems for? Identify the key words, and discuss what you think each word implies.

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.

‘bread’ could mean ‘food and other things one needs to live’ or, colloquially, ‘money’. Which meaning do you think is more likely here?
What sort of attitude is conveyed by ‘strut’ and ‘trade’?
The ‘towering dead’ could refer to famous poets of past generations. For example John Keats wrote a famous poem ‘Ode to a Nightingale’. Do you think this interpretation fits in with the other ideas in the poem?
The word ‘ivory’ could make the reader think of ‘ivory towers’, a critical expression for a place where the everyday realities of the world are ignored and forgotten. Would this half-hinted interpretation fit the rest of the ideas in the poem?