Ted Hughes Forum

Ted Hughes

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Just read Diane Middlebrook's fantastic biography of the Hughes/Plath marriage, as well as Elaine Feinstein's Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet. I've been interested in Hughes' work since high school when I was assigned him as a term paper subject (we were all assigned living poets, and he was in fact alive back then -- 1982). I'd love to discuss his poetry with others.... my favorites are his Crow poems and of course Birthday Letters.

>>By Starling (Monday, 23 Feb 2004 07:57)

well well
his two wives killed themselves (i dont know what's wrong with this man really , either he chooses women with suicidal tendencies or he has a way to draw them insane :))
and hughes' career is somewhat shadowed by his "stormy" relationship with Plath (most people remember him as Plath's husband though he was the poet laureate of Britain- hmm as far as i know most people back then in Britain were astonished when he was declared poet laureate)
(read Plath's The Bell Jar, a semi authobiographical work, as a comparison to The Birthday Letters)
anyway
i still like The Thought Fox :)

>>By papatya (Monday, 23 Feb 2004 08:38)

Hi,

I think Hughes had talent, genuine talent, his problem that of being drawn to beautiful women who were manic depressives. After all is said and done poetry itself draws on melancholy and nostalgia and fairly melodramatic in application. Shakespeare's poetry/verse was on the other hand that of a joker/jester...

>>By devonwren (Monday, 23 Feb 2004 11:08)

Rather than The Bell Jar, I think it's more useful to look at Hughes' Birthday Letters alongside Plath's journals and poems , the Ariel poems especially. I'm looking forward to reading Erica Wagner's book, Ariel's Gift: Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and the story of The Birthday Letters. This came out a few years ago but I missed it.

Today I listened to a recording of several poems from Crow and Wodwo, read by Hughes. His accent and his voice are astonishing... Yorkshire for sure, yet with a softness, a song to it. Not that these particular poems are very lyrical.

>>By Starling (Tuesday, 24 Feb 2004 02:09)

I also read Hughes' Birthday letters as well as Ariel's Gift (the latter is more from a critic's view point of their work), which reveals his love for Plath, but also the pain he had to endure as a survivor, the weight of his punished life. I'd love to get some more information about the recording of poems read by Hughes (which publisher or recording company, when it has come out andd where to get it etc.).

>>By Joysky (Friday, 31 Mar 2006 20:09)

The Thought Fox, a poem, is probably his finest work. I heard it read on Radio Four some weeks ago and it astonished me as much as it did when I first read it years ago. I would take it on Des Is Discs..

>>By nadolig (Monday, 5 Jun 2006 00:30)

Ted Hughes, I think, is deep like an ocean. You can find many things in his poetry from shamanism to occult issues, from nature to culture. I appreciate all of his poetry collections, though I haven't read all his poems yet. If anyone needs anything written on Ted Hughes, she should consult Keith Sagar's books.

>>By literature (Tuesday, 13 Jan 2009 09:27)

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