Wolfwatching

by Ted Hughes

Wolfwatching , Ted Hughes's fourteenth collection of poetry, contains several characteristic poems, in which nature is presented with striking exactitude, unclouded by sentiment. But Hughes breaks new ground with a number of intimate and unforgettable poems that memorialize members of his family as they were in his youth, in the years following the First World War.

Genres: Poetry

66 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

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

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Take telegraph wires, a lonely moor,
And fit them together. The thing comes alive in your ear.

Towns whisper to towns over the heather.
But the wires cannot hide from the weather.

So oddly, so daintily made
It is picked up and played.

Such unearthly airs
The ear hears, and withers!

In the revolving ballroom of space,
Bowed over the moor, a bright face

Draws out of telegraph wires the tones
That empty human bones.

[Kirsty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ultimately disappointing, Wolfwatching is nowhere near as startling or thoughtful as I usually find Hughes' poetry. It really pales into insignificance when compared to veritable works of art like Birthday Letters.

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Still trying and failing to become a Ted Hughes fan.

[Jennifer Strong · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only half understood three of the poems included here. Not my cup of tea at all.

[girlypop brownie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ann Skea tells us:
"Of all the symbols which Hughes uses, the wolf is almost unique in the lasting power of its attraction for him, in the ambiguity of its nature as he describes it, and in the way in which he extends the scope of its symbolism from personal to universal applicability. Hughes's wolves embody the contradictory qualities of the natural energies: they have beauty of form, an economical directness of function, the instinctive voracity of appetite for which wolves are renowned, and a predatory cunning which has allowed them to survive in the harshest of environments.
It is no surprise, therefore, that Hughes's latest book of poetry should be called Wolfwatching."



Throughout the book in most of the poems, the wolf becomes a mask that at times is just a mask, and at times becomes the man itself merging with the man and dominating him completely. Hughes wrote the poem just after the death of Sylvia Plath ,one wonders whether he was preoccupied with her death as she was a victim too of her own instinctive whims and fancies. A victim of her own creativity that said :
"Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call."

[Professor Typewriter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ted Hughes delivered again with this collection. Let’s be clear, WOLFWATCHING is a demanding volume of poetry, but it is also a rewarding volume of poetry. The poems that focus on the impact of WWI upon veterans and their community are the most haunting and the most inspired poems.

A lot of Hughes’ poetry either explores cultural development or human behavior. When the rare poem does both, it will make an impact on you. WOLFWATCHING is an excellent volume of poetry from a poet late in his career. Read all the Ted Hughes poems you can.

[Anders · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd heard Hughes was good, but I probably should have started with a different collection. This one's alright. The Rhino poem is great and he generally has a nice way with words. But many of the poems are about his relationship with his father who barely survived the horrors of WWI and I suppose I wasn't really in the mood.

[cami .✶ฺﾟ｡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprised to see such dislike. This is a favourite of Hughes's collections for me.

"A Sparrow Hawk / Slips from your eye-corner - overtaking / Your first thought. / Through your mulling gaze over haphazard earth / The sun's cooled carbon wing / Whets the eyebeam."

God! How magic!

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

The tired poet needs to rest.

[Joe Avary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found the capitalization of every line extremely annoying... other than that, not bad. Just hard to read

[Descending Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highlights ~ "Astrological Conundrums" "Climbing into Heptonstall" "Dust as We Are" "Wolfwatching" "Sacrifice " "For the Duration" "Take What You Want But Pay For It" and "Little Whale Song".

[Andrew Corsini · Rating 3 out of 5]

The obsession with nature is always intriguing, but this is far too similar to Hughes' other work.

[Ellie Grendon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mehhhh

[J Grimsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ted Hughes in his usual blunt style. The more you read his poems the more you get out of them.

[Alice Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think i liked one :p

[Patricia Tacuri · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you were to ask me to name my favourite poet, I would have a very hard time naming just one, as I read different people for different things. Ted Hughes, I read primarily for his nature poetry which illuminates creatures and landscapes that I see all the time with a clarity and accuracy which make me see them in a new way.

Wolfwatching is a collection of poems which divides fairly evenly into the nature poems that I love so much and poems about Hughes’ father and their relationship. I personally prefer the former type because of the shocks of recognition that they provide; the poems which aren’t centred around the natural world are more opaque and harder to pin down, but they feel profound even if I don’t understand them as well. It is a slim volume of only 55 pages, but it is powerfully written and full of beautiful phrases.

As I find it almost impossible to review poetry, I thought I would share some of my favourite passages instead. The first example is drawn from the first poem in the book, ‘A Sparrow Hawk’:

Those eyes in their helmet
Still wired direct
To the nuclear core – they alone

Laser the lark-shaped hole
In the lark’s song.

I love how it both physically describes the bird and conveys the speed, efficiency and deadliness of the hawk’s attack.

Next is an offering from ‘Manchester Skytrain’, perfectly describing a highly-strung racehorse:

Every known musical instrument
The whole ensemble, packed
Into a top-heavy, twangling half ton
On the stilts of an insect.

And finally, the famous ending of one of the more esoteric poems in the collection, ‘Two Astrological Conundrums II: Tell’:

With all my might – I hesitated.

[Courtney Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

A small collection, which seems to have themes of loss and waste and imprisonment - a child's ever-weeping mother, a greyed wolf in a London zoo, the scars (mental and physical) of the First World War. It leaves a taste of sadness and condemnation in your mouth, but is still full of beauty, whether it's the close observation of animals or humans. From 'Source' (the final third of the poem):

... Your tears didn't care.
They'd come looking for you
Wherever you sat alone. They would find you
(Just as I did
On those thundery, stilled afternoons
Before my schooldays)> You would be bowed
In your workroom, over your sewing machine.
They would snuggle against you. You would
Stop the needle and without a word
Begin to weep quietly. Like a singing.
With no other care, only to weep
Wholly, deeply, as if at last
You had arrived, as if now at last
You could relax, relax utterly
Into a luxury of pure weeping -
Could dissolve yourself, me, everything
Into this relief of your strange music.

[saizine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this one up from my uni library after coming across the title poem online (which I still love, especially He's a tarot-card, and he knows it. / He can howl all night / And dawn will pick up the same card / And see him painted on it, with eyes / Like doorframes in a desert / Between nothing and nothing.) However, while I can certainly see that this is a strong collection from a strong poet, I didn't entirely click with it - and, oddly for me, I preferred the war poems to the nature subjects. I quite liked "Two Astrological Conundrums" (With all my might--I hesitated), "Dust As We Are", "For The Duration" (But what alarmed me most / Was your silence. Your refusal to tell. / I had to hear from others / What you survived and what you did), "Leaf Mould" (Your spectre-double, still in her womb), "Manchester Skytrain" (One can't bear to be groomed: / Arcs into shudders, chewing at a scream.), and "Us He Devours" (To which lichens of the Gothic adhere lightly).

[Jaimie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hughes' poetry once again tends towards brutality and violence, but this collection seems to be centred around the effects of war rather than the primeval/mythopoetic world. I would assume that Hughes himself or his father went to war because the recurring shell-shocked father character is extremely believable. Though that could have been just good research or empathy. It being centred on war, I didn't connect with this collection as much as Crow, but there were definitely some good poems. I really liked the titular "Wolfwatching," but t was so completely melancholy that it almost wasn't enjoyable in the usual sense. Hughes really captures the feeling of being caged wild animal and the effects of age, and that is what makes him one of the 20th-century's greatest poets.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am always interested in reading poems that portray the unity of nature and humanity. And Hughes is so quick with it here. Even among lines that I find incredibly awkward ("rocks sticking through their moss jerseys"), the intent and faith in that larger idea is so clear, and I am fascinated by the intelligence advancing it. Maybe one of my favorite images is the father guiding his family through the battlefield where he had been shot and almost killed. Or the poem about the soul of Adam being given a body!

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though this isn't my favorite work of Hughes's, I didn't dislike it quite as much as some of the other reviewers on here seem to. If it lacks in the color of Birthday Letters or the monolithic nature of Crow, Hughes is still, in my opinion, a strong poet, and that comes through in certain parts of this text. I certainly wouldn't recommend it as a first book to read by him, but I don't feel that the short time I spent with it was at all a waste.

[David Weller · Rating 3 out of 5]

A free-flowing read, with several memorable poems. The best ones were the ones that touched me deeply about the plight of our natural state. There were also several thoughtful letters on the veterans of wars. Most of the rest of the poems were oblique in meaning and I didn't find much value in them.
I could definitely see from this first reading of Hughes that he has that spark of talent the can spring deeply-felt renderings of the state of our world today.

[Rob the Obscure · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some really great poems in this collection. Hughes tends to help one understand the world, and his/her place in it, at another level.

There are some pretty darn good poems here.

There are some that are overwrought.

However, this collection is not a waste of time. It's been out a looooong time. But if you hadn't seen it (like me), it's worth a look.

[Chris Lilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Hughes pegs his vision to an observed reality: "Wolfwatching", "Black Rhino", the last sequence of poems reflecting Mytholmroyd (which is a real Yorkshire mill town and a place that starts with 'myth'. Wow.)he is a magnificent poet. When he offers his fables about god and Adam and stuff, I find him really annoying. But when he gets it right, he is wonderful.

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

i picked this up from the cover, and my belief, not worth my fact-checking, that ted hughes was once the poet laureate of great britain.

it was just okay. i was drawn in by a good poem about his father's non-reaction to PTSD. i never understood the wolves.

[Hollis Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not his best work in my opinion, although it's still better than 90% of the poetry that gets published in Britain today.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very hit and miss in my opinion. Some of these are great, but not many.

[John Eliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great poet, no doubt. I loved the poems within this collection that where about his family, particuarly his father. Others I found too wordy such has The Black Rhinoceros.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Powerful poems, although not as accessible as Billy Collins or Seamus Heaney.