Poetry Is.

by Ted Hughes

'Poetry Is' an informal and enticing introduction to the world of poetry for young readers, based on the author's B.B.C. children's programs. In this book, Ted Hughes, the well-known English poet, shows by explanation and example how modern poets, such as Emily Dickinson, D. H. Lawrence, Eudora Welty, Theodore Roethke, Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, and Philip Larkin, have captured animals and landscapes, wind and weather, people and moon creatures, with words. Around each of these subjects the author has grouped together some dozen poems, sprinkled with lucid comments of his own to develop the reader's listening and writing abilities. This is a new kind of poetry book that goes a long way toward unlocking the doors to the mysteries of poetry.

Genres: Poetry

101 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Edward James Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008, The Times ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
He married fellow poet Sylvia Plath in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England, in a tumultuous relationship. They had two children before separating in 1962 and Plath ended her own life in 1963.

Reviews

[Amelia · Rating 2 out of 5]

His writing is very clear and concise, though I felt at times that he was underestimating his young reader. He says in the preface that his intended audience here is age 10-14, and though his writing voice here is suited to that age group, his choice of topics and poems to reference makes it seem as though he thinks this age group isn’t capable of much abstract thought (chapter topics include animals, the weather, people, landscapes). I’m not 10-14 so I can’t say for sure, but I felt it was all a bit surface level. That’s not to say that the poems he references aren’t good, nor that they are “too easy”, but his analysis of them at times limits their resonance.

Also— I typically really like Ted Hughes’ work, and I have nothing against poetry written with a young audience in mind, but a few of his poems in here were just really awful and clumsy in my opinion. Not all of them, but the poems in the last chapter (“Moon Creatures” — these may also have been published in another collection under the title Moon Whales?) were difficult to read for how stilted the syntax was.

See these lines from “Moon Horrors”:

“But the thing that specializes in hunting down the great hero
Is the flying strangler, the silent zero.
It is luckily quite rare, perhaps there is only one.
According to legend it lives sleepily coiled around the sun.
But when a moon-hero appears it descends and hovers just over his head.
His enemies call it a halo, but his friends see it and tremble with dread.”


All that being said, the introduction and the chapter “Learning to Think” were the parts of the book where I felt what he was saying was useful, and I did enjoy reading some parts of this little book. Just a little disappointed overall.