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lettersfromgrace 's review for:
The Hawk in the Rain
by Ted Hughes
I am in awe, I always am when it comes to Hughes. The Hawk in the Rain was his debut, and is so distinguished from the voice he finds in Crow or Birthday Letters, but so beautiful in its own write. He is much more traditional, much more lyrical than he is later into the seventies and eighties, and only once does he drop his punctuation to my note— whereas it is a favourite technique in Crow. He’s more verbose, but at points even imagist, “October is a marigold,” or concerned with a post-war society, and it makes for intriguing reading to compare his earlier works to his latter ones from a contextual standpoint.
However, I read this primarily for pleasure— Hughes does seem to be a writer I turn to for that! He got me through Paradise Lost and now the last stretch of my Orwell extended essay— and so my favourite poems from that first reading were:
The eponymous, The Hawk in the Rain, which I thought was so Shakespearean, so tragic, and rebelled in its phonology.
Song. My goodness, the Romeo and Juliet reference, “the difficult stars sway for eyes in your face;” and that line (!!) “you stood, and your shadow was my place;” which is such a subversion of the usual relationship dynamics explored in love poetry, where it is the woman who is hollow rather than the man, “when the wind kissed you you made him music, for you were a shaped shell.” & the anaphora & refrain. Such an attractive poem that sets the tone for a lot of the imagery within the collection.
I forget the title of the poem, but the lines “he has found a woman with such wit and looks he can brag of her in every company,” stood out to me— the relationship he is aspiring to is one where he is content and fulfilled within his partner who is his equal or even his superior despite clear qualms expressed in earlier stanzas and even in subsequent poems like The Dove-Breeder he is incredibly proud of who he is married to, and wants to celebrate her. However, the extent to which this is celebration instead of objectification is dubious, and cracks of insecurity are evident, but for the attempt at equality within the climate of the nineteen-sixties I admire Hughes, especially for his honesty.
Parlour-Piece (ahhh!!), so simple, two stanzas, but oh so perfect! To be so fire and flood strained is a feeling anyone who has experienced passionate obsessive love will relate to, and the dangers and failures that feeling exposes you to are also implicit, resulting in this beautifully charged poem of potentiality.
As previously discussed The Dove-Breeder; I already imagine there are many amazing critical arguments about the image of the hawk in this anthology, but again I found this poem interesting in its male perspective on relationship dynamics.
Billet-Doux; superlative. To say someone “sees straight through bogeymen, the crammed cafés, the ten thousand books packed end to end, even [his] gross bulk; to the fiery star coming for the eye itself, and while she grabs of them what she can,” is such a compliment, such an ode. And that last stanza, the existentialism, the desperation! “If… I do not hold you closer and harder than love by a desperation, show me no home.”
Desire— the last three stanzas are perfect, so powerful & I adore Hughes use of the star imagery throughout this collection. “Each, each second, [look at that use of repetition!!] lonelier and further, falling alone through the endless without-world of the other, though both here twist so close they choke their cries.”
September love love loved the similes and the slowness created within the poem perfectly reflects that midsummer sense.
The Thought Fox. A very traditionally Hughes’ image and characterisation, and truthfully modern, almost dare I say it Woolfian, (she’s always on my mind) poem? Very enjoyable.
Overall, an amazing collection of poems which are overwhelmingly sentient; worthy of many rereads.
I think Hughes has safely established himself as one of my favourite poets, despite my disagreements with him at points.
However, I read this primarily for pleasure— Hughes does seem to be a writer I turn to for that! He got me through Paradise Lost and now the last stretch of my Orwell extended essay— and so my favourite poems from that first reading were:
The eponymous, The Hawk in the Rain, which I thought was so Shakespearean, so tragic, and rebelled in its phonology.
Song. My goodness, the Romeo and Juliet reference, “the difficult stars sway for eyes in your face;” and that line (!!) “you stood, and your shadow was my place;” which is such a subversion of the usual relationship dynamics explored in love poetry, where it is the woman who is hollow rather than the man, “when the wind kissed you you made him music, for you were a shaped shell.” & the anaphora & refrain. Such an attractive poem that sets the tone for a lot of the imagery within the collection.
I forget the title of the poem, but the lines “he has found a woman with such wit and looks he can brag of her in every company,” stood out to me— the relationship he is aspiring to is one where he is content and fulfilled within his partner who is his equal or even his superior despite clear qualms expressed in earlier stanzas and even in subsequent poems like The Dove-Breeder he is incredibly proud of who he is married to, and wants to celebrate her. However, the extent to which this is celebration instead of objectification is dubious, and cracks of insecurity are evident, but for the attempt at equality within the climate of the nineteen-sixties I admire Hughes, especially for his honesty.
Parlour-Piece (ahhh!!), so simple, two stanzas, but oh so perfect! To be so fire and flood strained is a feeling anyone who has experienced passionate obsessive love will relate to, and the dangers and failures that feeling exposes you to are also implicit, resulting in this beautifully charged poem of potentiality.
As previously discussed The Dove-Breeder; I already imagine there are many amazing critical arguments about the image of the hawk in this anthology, but again I found this poem interesting in its male perspective on relationship dynamics.
Billet-Doux; superlative. To say someone “sees straight through bogeymen, the crammed cafés, the ten thousand books packed end to end, even [his] gross bulk; to the fiery star coming for the eye itself, and while she grabs of them what she can,” is such a compliment, such an ode. And that last stanza, the existentialism, the desperation! “If… I do not hold you closer and harder than love by a desperation, show me no home.”
Desire— the last three stanzas are perfect, so powerful & I adore Hughes use of the star imagery throughout this collection. “Each, each second, [look at that use of repetition!!] lonelier and further, falling alone through the endless without-world of the other, though both here twist so close they choke their cries.”
September love love loved the similes and the slowness created within the poem perfectly reflects that midsummer sense.
The Thought Fox. A very traditionally Hughes’ image and characterisation, and truthfully modern, almost dare I say it Woolfian, (she’s always on my mind) poem? Very enjoyable.
Overall, an amazing collection of poems which are overwhelmingly sentient; worthy of many rereads.
I think Hughes has safely established himself as one of my favourite poets, despite my disagreements with him at points.