PoemoftheWeek

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Originally Posted by jackyyyy

However,I don't see how Humankind is being singled out as different in the food chain.

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Well, humans eat 'innocents' and incinerate their outcry. They're aware of inflicting pain where the other animals are probably not, but they deny it. Isn't that different?

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Originally Posted by jackyyyy

Is it right or wrong to eat?

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Right or wrong hardly seems to be the point. Necessary but horrific seems to be the point.

I think you alluded earlier to the possibility of vegetarianism, jackyyy. I can't help feeling this is a sort of lacuna in the poem - and it makes me a little more receptive to the fascism argument, as if Hughes is making a very selective argument that humankind is inherently destructive, using the example of meat eating as if it's all encompassing, in denial himself about the option taken by many of not eating meat. Why in denial? Well, if you buy the fascism argument, perhaps because it suits his purposes to insist that human beings are locked into a struggle for domination whether they like it or not - which might be true, but the argument isn't quite made here.

Crow could have tried to become the light, a vegetarian. Maybe this was not an option for Hughes, as he was intending something else. Certainly, refusing to eat was not an option. Here is where I really think he was heading:

With whose perspective is it horrific... since man can predate man, a lion can predate man, a disease can predate man (even without a brain). And top of the food tree is Creation, which is where Hughes starts it all.

Hughes points out: Even man when he walks.

Hughes elected Crow (the Crow with a brain), to be the weeper for this predicament, and a 'black' Crow is a fitting subject because of its implied connection to death. Technically, the weeper could just as easily have been the bird, the cat, or the insect, except they are not as symbolic. In anycase, same as man, they were all made by Creation.

LIFE, given and taken away by Creation, and Crow sees LIFE for what it really is. He does not seem at all confounded with it. Rather, he is sensitive to it, which is what makes him weep.... then carry on stabbing.


I am just throwing this up onto the page, I got to read it again.

This would be a simpler poem if the word "incinerating" was not there. Without that word, the poem is fairly straight forward: the inherent rapacity of carnivores as a need to live, and that rapcity linked to an evolutionary process, tied to a natural transcendentalism all the way back to creation. It is a natural process to go from Tyrannosaurus to crow to man. However, throw in that word incinerating, post world war two, you have a moral dimension beyond what I've just summarized. In the animal world that Hughes describes you do not have any suggestion of intra-species fratricide. One animal kills a different species for survival. The calling up of a halocaust imagery transcends the animal imagery of nature "red in tooth and claw". The killing here is not for survival but for political reasons. The only implication I can draw here is that Hughes is saying that the energy (or shall I use the word libido, or Freudian, id) required for survival can be transmuted into a homicidal drive. But only that energy. There is a tremendous distinction (moral or otherwise) between killing animals to eat and killing jews for extermination.

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Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe

Here's an interesting article I found while looking for a full text of the poem online

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Hey, this link wasn't working for me. :confused: Maybe I'll try again later.

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Originally Posted by genoveva

Hey, this link wasn't working for me. :confused: Maybe I'll try again later.

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It still works for me - it's pdf format, can your browser cope?

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Originally Posted by “blp”

Still, whatever his personal behaviour, I think it's unfair - I know you're not saying this yourself - to accuse Hughes of making an argument for fascism here. Pointing out the tragic inevitability of some killing doesn't automatically translate into justifying all brutal and murderous oppression.

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While I am not saying that Hughes was a fascist (I know you didn’t say I did), I can see why he could be accused of holding a viewpoint that does smell of Übermensch. What unsettles me about this poem is the possibility that there is little real difference between a swift eating an insect and a man killing a man. It’s as if both acts are simply instinctive and fundamental to our behaviour as living creatures. In other words, the killing cannot be stopped whether we face our duality or not. Virgil has talked about killing for different reasons. I think the main reason I find the poem so disconcerting is that it suggests all creatures simply kill to live. It’s nothing more than a survival instinct. Concepts of good and evil might disguise this basic fact but they can’t eradicate it – it’s genetically encoded.

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Originally Posted by “blp”

There's still something a little contradictory in this interpretation of the deafness - though it may be a contradiction that's in the poem.

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Yes, in order to try to explain what I think might be suggested by those last lines, I have had to overstate the case. I don’t think my response is the primary one the poem generates. I do however, think that the deafness is necessary. Even if we just think of Crow, the weeping must not stop him from killing or he’ll starve. He must learn to ignore it. The supreme predator is the one that doesn’t have to ignore the cries because he doesn’t even hear them.

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Originally Posted by “blp”

On the one hand, there's a suggestion that with humankind's superior killing ability comes a superior awareness of the victims' suffering. You're saying that the deafness to that suffering is what allows the position of superiority to be maintained.

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Sort of. It might be simply that evolution simultaneously produces the superior killing ability and the deafness. The one is dependent on the other. As I said above, the supreme predator is utterly ruthless.

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Originally Posted by “jackyyyy”

Technically, the weeper could just as easily have been the bird, the cat, or the insect, except they are not as symbolic.

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I disagree. The ‘weeper’ is not a crow but Crow. He is endowed with some degree of conscience that the other animals don’t have. The grubs weep but only for themselves in pain. Crow weeps for his prey. Or did you mean that the prey weeping in pain for itself could easily have been the bird, the cat or the insect?

'Incinerating' is a sensitive word, but did Hughes really slide that in to direct us? I try to not assume anything, looking at the plain words of it.

You're right, the 'weeper' is Crow, not crow, and Hughes could have picked 'a' bird, cat, or insect (technically, but not as emotionally poignant, except in maybe Orwell's case), my mistake. I see Crow weeping for both his prey's and his own mortality (eyes round in both terrific fear and pity/sorrow/regret). I guess I picked up on 'any species' because of the title, and Crow here is Tyrannosaurus, but Creation is above Crow in the food tree,, and I am now left wondering if Darwin was fascist or scientist.

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Originally Posted by “jackyyyy”

'Incinerating' is a sensitive word, but did Hughes really slide that in to direct us? I try to not assume anything, looking at the plain words of it.

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Obviously there is no way of knowing and it’s probably pointless to speculate but I can’t believe that the man married to Plath wasn’t aware of the effect of that word. I also read it in the context of ‘Abattoir’, with the implications I mentioned above. Virgil said that, “This would be a simpler poem if the word "incinerating" was not there.” It might do but it would, for me, make it a less interesting poem.

The interesting thing about creation is that what it immediately gives rise to (in the poem) is a funeral. Creation and destruction come as a pair.

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Originally Posted by “jackyyyy”

and I am now left wondering if Darwin was fascist or scientist.

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:lol: What about Hughes? :D

I’m also left wondering. Must be a good poem, then.

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Even if we just think of Crow, the weeping must not stop him from killing or he’ll starve. He must learn to ignore it. The supreme predator is the one that doesn’t have to ignore the cries because he doesn’t even hear them.

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I see, except my slightly finicky point is that humanity, as supreme predator (at least in this scheme of things) also has to learn to ignore the cries. Plenty of 'lesser' creatures can kill without empathy (microbes that make us ill, for instance) and this does not make them superior (though it's fun to imagine them feeling remorese). Humanity is more like Crow - conflicted, weeping while killing; and the link is made between humanity and Crow with the 'thus' that takes us from weeping to round eyes and deaf ears and the way that echoes the incineration - the deliberate destruction not inherent deafness - of the innocents' outcry.

One word, enough to sink a thousand ships and raise a thousand dead.

Plath is the culprit, eh.

I'm glad this poem stirred up so much debate. I've had a copy of the Crow series for about 10 years and I've always loved them but never really analysed them quite as deeply as this. I may post another in a month or two.

As I see it, Crow is used in Hughes poems both as an observer of mankind and simultaneously as a metaphor for mankind; a killer with a conscience.

The juxtaposition of invented mythology and pseudo-biblical language with modern references (not so evident in this example) is what first attracted me to the book. I once played in a band that had a name taken from a line in a Hughes poem and so, when I found a copy of Crow going cheap, I took a look, liked what I saw, and bought it.

I like Unnamable's ideas about the meaning of the round eye & deaf ear, as I said above, these have always confused me. I believe he is right; a predator needs a keen eye for prey combined with the ability to disregard that prey's screams.

I also agree with Virgil, in that in the case of mankind, Hughes is not limiting his observations to killing for food but is also referring to warfare and other killing - the same kinds of eyes and ears are required in both cases (although, I'm not sure if he's saying that we are like this and so killing is inevitable and natural, or that we need to become like this, if we 'have' to kill).

One last point. This poem was written in 1970, a time when the worlds first technicolor, televised war was at it's height in Vietnam; incineration could just as easily refer to the use of Napalm on civilians as to Hitler's ovens, don't you think?

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Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe

This poem was written in 1970

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and his wife, Plath, ended it in 63, by gas. There is a lot to speculate.
Thanks, Xamonas.

I really must compare a few of Hughes's poems from before Sylvia's death with what came after. I find it hard to believe that it had no effect. I bought Plath's "collected Poems" recently. Hughes provided the introduction and steadfastly steers clear of any autobiographical references. The nearest that he comes is to say, "until she was overtaken by the inspiration that produced the poems of the last six months of her life." Although, I admit to being surprised that he agreed to write it at all. It must have been traumatic for him.

I wonder if Hughes ever blamed himself for Plath's suicide. I can't believe that he never did but neither can I believe that he always did. She did make several attempts earlier in life and showed early signs of mental instability. The Unnamable states that Hughes must have been difficult to live with; I would offer that Plath was probably not much easier.

It's strange that I've been reading Hughes's poetry for years but only started reading Plath since signing up to this forum. I have to thank those that posted her poetry here for that. I must admit to falling into the, "she's only read by neurotic, suicidal females" camp - what the **** was I thinking?

Thank for putting me straight, The Unnamable and others

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Originally Posted by “blp”

I see, except my slightly finicky point is that humanity, as supreme predator (at least in this scheme of things) also has to learn to ignore the cries.

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Yes, of course – but I don’t mean it to be a literal outlining of evolution. Don’t forget that even before they have to learn to ignore the cries, they have to evolve the ability to hear them in the first place, -in the way Crow or we do. Perhaps I should have said that man no longer hears the cries rather than ‘doesn’t’– it’s the next stage on from Crow’s.

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Originally Posted by “blp”

Plenty of 'lesser' creatures can kill without empathy (microbes that make us ill, for instance) and this does not make them superior (though it's fun to imagine them feeling remorese).

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These do everything without empathy – it’s not something of which they are capable, full stop. I also assume they don’t have any conscious awareness.
There is an interesting parallel with a scene from Apocalypse Now, when Kurtz talks about the North Vietnamese going into a village and cutting off the inoculated arms of young children:

Kurtz: These were not monsters, these were men, trained cadres, these men who fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who were filled with love. But they had the strength, the strength to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgment--without judgment--because it's judgment that defeats us.

Perhaps what Hughes is reflecting on really is the Heart of Darkness.

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Originally Posted by “blp”

Humanity is more like Crow - conflicted, weeping while killing;

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Some of humanity is – but some have moved on to the next stage. The Nazi extermination depended upon the dehumanising of the Jews. Many of the perpetrators simply didn’t see their victims as beings with the same feelings, passions, fears etc. as their own.

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Originally Posted by “blp”

and the link is made between humanity and Crow with the 'thus' that takes us from weeping to round eyes and deaf ears and the way that echoes the incineration - the deliberate destruction not inherent deafness - of the innocents' outcry.

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Incineration here is the ultimate negation – it physically removes, leaving hardly a trace but the method is mechanised and en masse. It treats human beings as if they were simply so many cubic tonnes of waste mater to be disposed of. Mass murder as an industrial process (this is hinted at in Abattoir). And they did process the victims – taking hair, skin, fat and so on as by-products of that process. A few more Plath lines come to mind – from Lady Lazarus:

“…my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,”


“Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.”

Do you think someone might post a more cheerful poem for this week? :D

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Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Do you think someone might post a more cheerful poem for this week? :D

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:lol: That's odd, comng from you. I always get the feeling that if a work doesn't end with someone sticking their head in an oven, you seem disappointed. :nod: