Lines on Ted Hughes

[NUT]

Dead Ted

I can just make
Harthill and Mexborough fit
On the same page of 2 miles to an inch.

A year ago, I skimmed
'What is the truth?' and got
bored, but today I heard 'The Letters'.

It seems that truth is
a perfect circle,
one oven to the next,

but that sick story now
smoulders only in my
voyeuristic dreams.

[Virgil]

Very good Nut. I like it. I can't pick up on all the allusions but it works as a poem. I loved this stanza:

It seems that truth is
a perfect circle,
one oven to the next,
I think I get the oven allusion. ;)

[blp]

Not National Union of Teachers then?

One of the best things I've read here for ages.

[ampoule]

How excellent. What thoughts.

I love The Seven Sorrows, especially at this time of year.

[ktd222]

I like it. Very honest in the different degrees in which the same truth affects us, depending on the medium that’s used.

[TheFifthElement]

An excellent poem NUT, and the oven line, 'ouch'!

[NUT]

Thanks very much to all of you for your comments, I'm in a bit of a pickle because I've been trying to reply to things that individuals have said but (embarrasingly for one of the 'computer generation') I can't find how to quote in replies! :blush:

If someone could please point me in the direction of the relevant instructions (i'm sure they aren't far away!) it would be much appreciated!

[NUT]

If someone could please point me in the direction of the relevant instructions (i'm sure they aren't far away!) it would be much appreciated!

Oooh - I think I've found it! How silly of me :)


I can't pick up on all the allusions

Thanks for reading, Virgil, perhaps it would be interesting to explain the context of writing?

Yesterday I listened to BBC Radio 4's afternoon play, 'The Ted Hughes Letters', which was a narrated reading of extracts from the recently released book of that name. (If you have chance, do 'listen again' at the BBC Listen Again page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml#a) )

As mentioned in the poem, I browsed past his narrated book of poems about animals, 'What is the truth?', a while ago, but had never really read or studied any of his work. The Independent newspaper published extracts from the book a couple of weeks ago, and so I was familiar with some of the letters when they came on R4, but Richard Armitage's reading really brought them to life for me.

I found the programme very powerful, and the part which really cut me was feeling the devestating parallels between the circumstance of and Ted's reaction to Sylvia and Assia's suicides.

I moved suddenly from the powerful admiration that had quickly developed on hearing his inimitable writing style and indulging the personal affinity I felt from his accent (or that of Richard Armitage's character), heritage (Mexborough, where he grew up, is in South Yorkshire, my home), and various thoughts and opinions that I empathised with, to an inverse emotion, almost anger, at how this happened to him, twice, in such a similar way.

I realised that I had been accepting the 'truth' of the presentation of his letters as the man himself, and my judgements were possibly obscenely unfair. And, what was more, these were not the writer's own publications, and I shuddered at the thought of people reading any of my own personal letters, and felt very wrong, and slightly confused.

Kttd22, your phrase


the different degrees in which the same truth affects us, depending on the medium that’s used

is bang on. It's interesting how this developed from what seems, from your comments, Fifth and Virgil, to be the most striking image of the poem, 'one oven to the next', innocent in itself, but which in Ted's context definitely has the connotation of
'ouch' at the very least.

I read 'The Seven Sorrows' - thank you ampoule - and that rekindled admiration and aspiring affinity which remains, if with a guilty conscience, in the last stanza.

If anyone has any further comments about Ted Hughes's life or writing, I'd be really interested to hear them, including suggestions, as ampoule kindly provided, of other poems of interest by Hughes, or perhaps any other people's poems about emotional responses to specific poets?

Thanks to all for your positive feedback, it is encouraging as a young writer and developing enthusiast, and I think this group of forums could very soon become addictive!

[NUT]

Not National Union of Teachers then?

ha, thanks for that implication BLP :P I hadn't realised the acronym existed in that form..