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Poetry & Poets in Rags (Free subscription) | 11/25/2009
of the great bird poets. This is an orgiastic firework display of common hens calling to the dawn, as seen from the height of the hill. The Exposed Nest by Robert Frost. The lines "We saw the risk we took in doing good,/but dared not spare to do the best we could/though harm should come of it" stay with me. It's about covering up an exposed bird's nest, but it could be about Iraq, Afghanistan...
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The Independent (Free subscription) | 11/24/2009
Not since judges of the Whitbread Prize shrugged off accusations of sentimentality to name Ted Hughes as the posthumous winner in 1998 has there been a dead author in line for a major book award.
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Sylvia Plath Info (Free subscription) | 11/21/2009
In October, my review of Alix Strauss' Death Becomes Them , led to some temporary uncertainly over Aurelia Plath's whereabouts on 24 August 1953 - the afternoon of Sylvia Plath's first suicide attempt. Was she at the theater? Was she at a friends? In Wellesley? Or in some other town? Thanks to BrigetAnna, ~VC, and Jim Long for pointing out that this is something Strauss got right (see the comments...
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Character Sketch (Free subscription) | 11/15/2009
Last night I dreamed that Tom and I opened our front door, and there on the porch was a red fox. Except this wasn't an ordinary red fox, it was a RED fox--scarlet--cardinal red! I was mesmerized. Our little kitten Rufus ran out to play with it and at first I was frightened, but then I realized he'd be fine. I awoke to be clear that this fox was the perfect unity of Ted Hughes ("The Thought Fox"--one...
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Character Sketch (Free subscription) | 11/13/2009
I wanted to write about my dream last night, but I didn't have time this morning. SO here it is: My family and I all lived at my house...but it wasn't my house... it was larger, and in a sort of jungle setting. It was like a series of vacation condos. Ross was following me around, and he would swing back and forth, from almost-18-year-old Ross, to 8-year-old Ross (which is really how teenagers kind...
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Lorcaloca (Free subscription) | 11/12/2009
The Thought-Fox I imagine this midnight moment's forest: Something else is alive Besides the clock's loneliness And this blank page where my fingers move. Through the window I see no star: Something more near Though deeper within darkness Is entering the loneliness: Cold, delicately as the dark snow, A fox's nose touches twig, leaf; Two eyes serve a movement, that now And again now, and now, and now...
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Poetry & Poets in Rags (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
who would also take his own life years later, that stands out as one of the most tender expressions of paternal love and encapsulates [Ted] Hughes's sentiments: "The only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough . . . didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all." from The Observer: Letters of Ted Hughes selected and edited by Christopher Reid ~~~~~~~~~~~
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Sylvia Plath Info (Free subscription) | 11/09/2009
At 5 p.m. on 13 November 2009, Catherine Bowman will be at the Woodberry Poetry Room. She will be both reading from her collection of poems The Plath Cabinet and playing recordings of poems by Plath (and possibly Ted Hughes and Anne Sexton, too). If you are in the area, please come to the informal event, it is free and open to the public. The Woodberry Poetry Reading is in Room 330 of Lamont Library...
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Character Sketch (Free subscription) | 11/09/2009
Well, as I told Jake today on the phone, if one is going to ache sitting, standing, walking or lying down, then one ought to sit, stand and walk. I spent most of this glorious day outside at the lake, cleaning my car, running in to get my laundry caught up (a monumental task--and it's all done!) and some relaxing, reading Ted Hughes' Winter Pollen (a work of genius--I recommend it to every writer,...
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baithak (Free subscription) | 11/08/2009
Juba in a jam - Salva Kiir's controversial remark regarding the possibility of secession just shows that the southern Sudanese will not opt for unity at any cost, surmises Gamal Nkrumah Pakistan's terrorist surge - Cutting off the money supply to terrorists and diversifying economic and military aid are key to winning the battle for Pakistan, writes Tariq Osman Hyder . Without adequate multinational...
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Lorcaloca (Free subscription) | 11/08/2009
A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket - And you listening. A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch. A pail lifted, still and brimming - mirror To tempt a first star to a tremor. Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm wreaths of breath - A dark river of blood, many boulders, Balancing unspilled milk. 'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon!...
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The Guardian (Free subscription) | 11/08/2009
Relentless daily trivia, the shackles of conformity and the "clamour of the world" were, for Ted Hughes, foes of the creative spirit. And Hughes the writer is the focus of this magnificent collection, which captivatingly explores the relationship between the man and his art. Slating 20th-century English writing as "poison gas... numbing, smartening, trivialising, finally paralysing",...
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The Guardian (Free subscription) | 11/07/2009
A new collection showcases young poets whose work soars above the tired editorial clichés In 1962, Penguin published an anthology edited by Al Alvarez, bombastically entitled The New Poetry . Alvarez introduced his selection with a now-famous essay in which he expressed his belief that the postwar English literary scene had become insular and moribund, its poetry calcifying into the "academic-administrative...
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Character Sketch (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
I'm just about done with my latest Ted Hughes bio, and then I'll be on to the next one. Honestly, I'm learning more about Plath in his bios than in hers. Hers are too biased; they all have either the women's lib agenda, or the insanity/depression agenda. Here's what I believe: Ted loved her. Really. I think he proved it time and time again, most obviously by basically giving up any chance for success...
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Sylvia Plath Info (Free subscription) | 11/01/2009
The good people at the Lilly Library quietly acquired some of Trevor Thomas' papers earlier this year. The T. Thomas mss, ca. 1976-1990, "consist of the correspondence, writings, legal depositions, poetry, typescript of his autobiography, and poetry of Trevor Thomas, b. South Wales, 1907. Appointed Keeper of the Department of Ethnology in the City of Liverpool Free Public museum, Thomas became...
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