A Ted Hughes Bestiary

by Ted Hughes

Originally the medieval bestiary or book of animals set out to establish safe distinctions - between them and us - but Hughes's poetry works always in a contrary showing what man and beast have in common, the reservoir from which we all draw.

Alice Oswald's selection is arranged chronologically, with an eye to different books and styles, but equally to those poems that embody animals, rather than just describe them. Some poems are here because, although not strictly speaking animal, they become so in the process of writing; and in keeping with the bestiary tradition there are plenty of imaginary animals - all concentratedly coming about their business.

The resulting selection is subtly responsive to a central aspect of Hughes's achievement, while offering room to some wonderful overlooked poems, and to 'those that have the wildest tunes.'

Genres: Poetry, Animals, Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2014

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

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think I will ever be able to articulate the feeling I had when I first read Hawk in the Rain... I was in Foyles bookshop in London one evening, just browsing. I randomly picked up Hughes' first collection, and read the eponymous poem. And it was like... it was like a jolt of electricity. The terrible clarity and honesty about the beauty and terror and power and fragility of life, somehow anti-romantic about and awestruck by nature at the same time. Sublime.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of Hughes' poems and a needed update on his late works, including Birthday Letters. Much of Hughes' work centers on the natural world, animals in particular, and he was one of the greatest in capturing the essence and marrow of the natural world. His poems ring to the very core and fiber of instinct. This collection also seems to capture his strongest works, perhaps because he was at his best in this particular theme. I don't often say a "must read," but I think for people who enjoy the poems of Ted Hughes, this is one to read.

[Adam Lowy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Received this as a Goodreads giveaway. A wonderful collection. We start with Hughes as the explorer, confronting creatures as the other. But through the journey of this anthology, Hughes's poems seem to merge us into nature and the animal world. His style is deceptively simple, direct with few shocking associations or images. Subtly, the poems build a bridge to a new way of experiencing, where all is connected to self.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exquisitely written, similar to the medieval bestiary these poems draw a thin line between animals and humans, subtly suggesting that we are similar in more than one fashion.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic, take-the-top-of-your-head-off poems

[Sem · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Unknown Wren

Hidden in Wren, sings only Wren. He sings
World-proof Wren
In thunderlight, at wrestling daybreak. Wren unalterable
In the wind-buffed wood.

Wren is here, but nearly out of control –
A blur of throbbings –
Electrocution by the god of wrens –
A battle-frenzy, a transfiguration –

Wren is singing in the wet bush.
His song sings him, every feather is a tongue
He is a song-ball of tongues –
The head squatted back, the pin-beak stretching to swallow the sky

And the wings quiver-lifting, as in death-rapture
Every feather a wing beating,
Wren is singing Wren – Wren of Wrens!
While his feet knot to a twig.

Imminent death only makes the wren more Wren-like
As harder sunlight, and realler earth-light.
Wren reigns! Wren is in power!
Under his upstart tail.

And when Wren sleeps even the star-drape heavens are a dream
Earth is just a bowl of ideas.

But now the lifted sun and the drenched woods rejoice with trembling –
WREN OF WRENS!

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ted Hughes – ‘Sing the Rat’

Sing the hole’s plume, the rafter’s cockade
Who melts from the eye-corner, the soft squealer
Pointed at both ends, who chews through lead

Sing the scholarly meek face
Of the penniless rat
Who studies all night
To inherit the house

Sing the riff-raff of the roof-space, who dance till dawn
Sluts in silk, sharpers with sleek moustaches
Dancing the cog-roll, the belly-bounce, the trundle

Sing the tireless hands
Of the hardworking rat
Who demolishes the crust, and does not fail
To sign the spilt flour

The rat, the rat, the ratatatat
The house’s poltergeist, shaped like a shuttle
Who longs to join the family

Sing his bright face, cross-eyed with eagerness
His pin-fingers, that seem too small for the job
Sing his split nose, that looks so sore
O sing his fearless ears, the listener in the wall

Let him jump on your head, let him cling there
Save him from sticks and stones

Sing the rat so poor he thrives on poison
Who has nothing to give to the trap, though it gapes for a year
Except his children
Who prays only to the ferret
‘Forget me’ and to the terrier
'In every thousand of me, spare two’

Sing him

Who stuffs his velvet purse, in hurry and fear
With the memory of the fork,
The reflections of the spoon, the hope of the knives


Who woos his wife with cape rings, who thinks deep

Who is the slave of two fangs

O sing

The long-tailed grey worry of the night-hours
Who always watches and waits
Like a wart on the nose
Even while you snore
O sing
Little Jesus in the wilderness
Carrying the sins of the house
Into every dish, the hated one

O sing
Scupper-tyke, whip-lobber
Smutty-guts, pot-goblin
Garret-whacker, rick-lark
Sump-swab, cupboard adder
Sneak-nicker, sprinty-dinty
Pintle-bum

[a dog who learned to read · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection is really interesting. It oscillates between poems that I find sort of dull and blandly observational, and these intense, goth pieces of work that deal with either the harshness of a real natural event (the poem about a lamb's birth that goes very wrong) or that takes on a more biblically terrifying imagery (some of the crow and rat poems where the creatures become literally hellish, demonic creatures).

It's the first Ted Hughes collection I've read, and as far as I understand it collects work from all over his lifespan, so it makes sense that I found some work way more arresting than other stuff here. Gotta read more of that True Goth stuff. Powerful indeed.

The sheep poems from the 70s are generally a huge highlight.

[heptagrammaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal little collection.

Above all, Ted Hughes shines in finding beauty in nature's brutality, in sharp turns of narrative, masterfully wrought yet starting concreteness. The violent macabreness of 1970's Crow and the grotesqueness of his animal poems of the late 1970s were particular highlights for me.

The Bestiary is arranged chronologically, its entries of study plucked from Hughes's lifetime of anthologies. That is a bit of a disservice to author and reader, the first poems wondrous but mostly quaint - but its also a boon, forming an arc of rising emotional stakes, of increasing skill, and deepening emotional impact, vast and brooding as a primordial lake's waters.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gift from Sarah M is such a revelation: a collection of Hughes' poems about animals in the natural world, bringing the wild into our lives through words that draw living pictures. Like any collection, the brilliance is somewhat uneven, but I think that here it is more about which pieces of nature we can personally relate to most clearly; for example, I will need to share October Salmon with all of my fishing friends, because it is so real and alive. This is a book I will now slowly reread, a few poems at a time, seeking to find myself in each of the small slices of wilderness.

[Raunak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hughes's mature work is original, skilful and inventive. His forms owe something to Lawrence and a little to Hopkins, but his vision of the animal world is quite is own - isolating cruel and predatory instincts, and projecting them on creatures of his own inventions.

[chinchin]

i dove in to kind of hate-read but i found him brilliant i cant lie. shoutout to alice oswald most of all. great selection down to the introductions and that pushkin translation-- my eyes, prophetic, recoiled-- is something that speaks to me i dunno why

[Raz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A whole book of poems about different animals is a novel idea, it works quite well though!

[George Melhuish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vg but marked down for obvious reasons

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

OH my goodness. Not for me. I just couldn't follow it at all. Definately not the type of poetry that I would be drawn to. I am really glad that I won this copy and didn't have to pay for it myself. It felt like the author was trying to use as many large words as possible to make the poems more pretentious and it did that, but right over my head. Maybe it is someones cup of tea but unfortunately not mine. Thanks for the free book, sorry I hated it.

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It should be noted that while I am not a fan of nature writing in general, I am more than aware that Ted Hughes knew his shit and crafted some excellent poetry, which is why I'm giving this four stars instead of the two I might otherwise have granted.

[Todd Glaeser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

[Joan Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hughes is the master of nature observation and its transmutation into poetry. No one really can compare with his handling of language and image. There are so many I like, but I will select a few for special mention; first and foremost what I consider his supreme poem: A Cranefly in September, followed by The Horses, View of a Pig, Hawk Roosting, The Stag, The Solstice, Coming Down Through Somerset, The Sheep, The Hen, Pike. Oswald has made a wondrous selection of Hughes’ poems