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milesjmoran 's review for:
The Hawk in the Rain
by Ted Hughes
I climbed through woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.
Evil air, a frost-making stillness,
Not a leaf, not a bird -
A world cast in frost. I came out above the wood
Where my breath left tortuous statues in the iron light.
But the valleys were draining the darkness
Till the moorline - blackening dregs of the brightening grey -
Halved the sky ahead. And I saw the horses:
Huge in the dense grey - ten together -
Megalith still. They breathed, making no move,
With draper manes and tilted hind-hooves,
Making no sound.
I passed: not one snorted or jerked its head.
Grey silent fragments
Of a grey silent world.
From the poem The Horses
I have a complex relationship with Ted Hughes, which is mainly due to the fact that my first glimpse of him was through the lens of Sylvia Plath’s poetry.
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
from Plath’s poem Daddy
Through reading many biographies on Plath and most of her writing in print, the image I had of Hughes was, needless to say, negative and this view went unchallenged until I read Crow, which is one of the best poetry collections I’ve ever read.
Hughes is, undoubtedly, a master of his craft, and it was really interesting to back to his first published collection, Hawk in the Rain. His voice is already so strong, so steady in these poems; it rarely stumbles and I think his most striking work comes out in his nature poems. They’re barbaric, hostile, yet dreamlike - I found myself transported by them, soaking in their atmosphere and imagery.
Some of his poems about war were fascinating and gutting, especially Griefs for Dead Soldiers, which blew me away, but I really struggled with his more erotic poems or those in which he focused on love and women. It’s very odd knowing he was with Plath when he wrote these and that she typed lines that minimise women to cooking and makeup but there were some beautiful lines here and there.
There were many poems that I adored in here, and they are (in order in which they appear)
The Hawk in the Rain
The Thought-Fox
The Horses
Famous Poet
Incompatibilities
The Conversion of the Revered Skinner
Egg-Head
The Man Seeking Experience Enquires His Way of a Drop of Water
Meeting
Wind
October Dawn
Rosters in a Ring
Vampire
Childbirth
The Hag
The Casualty
Griefs for Dead Soldiers
The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar
Evil air, a frost-making stillness,
Not a leaf, not a bird -
A world cast in frost. I came out above the wood
Where my breath left tortuous statues in the iron light.
But the valleys were draining the darkness
Till the moorline - blackening dregs of the brightening grey -
Halved the sky ahead. And I saw the horses:
Huge in the dense grey - ten together -
Megalith still. They breathed, making no move,
With draper manes and tilted hind-hooves,
Making no sound.
I passed: not one snorted or jerked its head.
Grey silent fragments
Of a grey silent world.
From the poem The Horses
I have a complex relationship with Ted Hughes, which is mainly due to the fact that my first glimpse of him was through the lens of Sylvia Plath’s poetry.
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
from Plath’s poem Daddy
Through reading many biographies on Plath and most of her writing in print, the image I had of Hughes was, needless to say, negative and this view went unchallenged until I read Crow, which is one of the best poetry collections I’ve ever read.
Hughes is, undoubtedly, a master of his craft, and it was really interesting to back to his first published collection, Hawk in the Rain. His voice is already so strong, so steady in these poems; it rarely stumbles and I think his most striking work comes out in his nature poems. They’re barbaric, hostile, yet dreamlike - I found myself transported by them, soaking in their atmosphere and imagery.
Some of his poems about war were fascinating and gutting, especially Griefs for Dead Soldiers, which blew me away, but I really struggled with his more erotic poems or those in which he focused on love and women. It’s very odd knowing he was with Plath when he wrote these and that she typed lines that minimise women to cooking and makeup but there were some beautiful lines here and there.
There were many poems that I adored in here, and they are (in order in which they appear)
The Hawk in the Rain
The Thought-Fox
The Horses
Famous Poet
Incompatibilities
The Conversion of the Revered Skinner
Egg-Head
The Man Seeking Experience Enquires His Way of a Drop of Water
Meeting
Wind
October Dawn
Rosters in a Ring
Vampire
Childbirth
The Hag
The Casualty
Griefs for Dead Soldiers
The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar