Ted Hughes: Poems Selected by Simon Armitage

by Ted Hughes, Simon Armitage (Editor)

Right from the beginning, Ted Hughes (1930-98) wrote in a way that set him apart from his contemporaries, as Simon Armitage puts it in his introduction. By the time he published his final collection of poems, 'Birthday Letters' in 1998, he had become a colossus on the literary landscape.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, School, Fiction, College

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

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

[Mikael · Rating 3 out of 5]

that one abt the birth of the baby goat/calf/sheep is so cool i wanted to be a welsh farmer for about 10 seconds

[Hakan · Rating 3 out of 5]

JAGUAR

Maymunlar esniyor ve pirelerini süzüyorlar güneşte.
Alev almışçasına haykıryor papağanlar, sekiyorlar ya da
Arsız orospular gibi, fıstıkla geçenleri çağırarak.
Miskinlikten yorulmuş aslanla kaplan

Yatıyorlar güneş denli kıpırtısız. Çöreklenmiş yılan
Bir fosil adeta. Boş gibi duruyor kafesler ardarda,
Saman kokulu nefesi yayılyor uykulu hayvanların.
Uygun herşey bir çocuk odasının duvarlar için.

Herkes gibi bunların önünden koşup geçen ama
Kalabalığın üşüştüğü bir kafese varyor, bakakalıyor
Düş gören bir çocuk gibi, kızgın bir jaguara;
Gözleri birer matkap, öfkeli bir fitil ucunda.

Koşuşuyor hücresinin karanlığında. Sıkkın değil canı
Ateşten kör olmaktan mutlu çünkü göz,
Beyindeki kanın çağıltısından sağır kulak
Dönüyor parmaklıklardan, kafes yok ama onu tutacak

İnanmış peygambere hücre olmadığı gibi:
Ölçülü adımlarında sonsuz özgürlüğü kıraçların,
Dünya sarsılyor topuklarının sert basışından,
Ufuklar geciyor tabanından kafesinin.

[Cassie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Sylvia Plath. Her poetry, her novel, even her journals are amazing and raw, beautiful and haunting. Out of interest I sought out this book. It feels sacrilegious to be saying so, but Ted Hughes blows me away. His poetry blew me away. The picture on the front, reflects that a lot of his work is based on animals, the jaguar, the worlf, and some interesting ones where a crow is responsible for man's evil-doings. But the one that resonated strongest with me was the fourth poem in the book (though the first, 'The Thought-Fox' came really close in it's capacity for mind-blowing), which is called 'The Horses'. With phrases like "the hour-before-dawn dark", "A world cast in frost", and "Grey silent fragments Of a grey silent world", a magical quality emerged from a simple description of what I assume are statues, that will stay with me for a very long time.

[Diyya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Better than whatever Plath had going on. Hughes has such a crisp way of writing.

Favourites (not in order):

Theology
Lovesong
Do not Pick up the Telephone

[Not Well Read · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

As a collection of ‘highlights’ from throughout Ted Hughes’ body of work, this selection mixes Hughes’ trademark ‘rustic’ style, his more personally-driven poems, and a few other thematic types. It seems like Simon Armitage and I have similar tastes (for Classics, King Arthur, and Ted Hughes) and I generally agree with his choices here. I really enjoyed Midas here and it made me wish there were more from Tales from Ovid in here than just the one (and perhaps more from Crow, which is my particular favourite), but the ones included are good choices from those collections, so this would be my only real criticism. Even an excerpt from Hughes’ The Oresteia might have been good to see too.

The ones that particularly spoke to me were:

• Pike (p.25 in my edition – this is a famous one, and he includes it as a model to follow in Poetry in the Making too)
• Thistles (p.27 = this is another I’ve seen before, but of course still good)
• Theology (p.32 – I love this one, and it’s new to me here. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Crow’s First Lesson)
• Full Moon and Little Frieda (p.34)
• Two Legends (p.36)
• Examination at the Womb-Door (p.37 – always love this one)
• Crow’s First Lesson (p.38 – I have always loved this one the most; one of my favourite poems)
• Crow’s Last Stand (p.43)
• Lovesong (p.45)
• The Lovepet (p.47)
• Emily Brontë (p.67)
• Midas (p.107)
• You Hated Spain (p.121)
• The Blue Flannel Suit (p.127)

Despite the conglomeration of different poems from different ‘eras’ of his career, the collection flows very naturally and so I found it very difficult to tear myself away while reading it – Armitage has cleverly avoided the feeling of ‘jumping’ from one mood to the next that occurs in other selections. Since these are selected ‘best’ poems from Hughes’ other collections, as a great fan and admirer of his I would say I don’t really *need* this selection, but it would be more beneficial for someone who hasn’t read much of his work to get an overall gauge of what he’s about (in fact, it would be a good gift to make people read him). In any case, this is a lovely edition, and I enjoyed revisiting the poems I already love and finding some new gems in the process too.

[June · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've avoided reading Ted Hughes because TWO OF HIS WIVES KILLED THEMSELVES BY STICKING THEIR HEADS IN AN OVEN--can you really say, "hmmm...wish I'd seen the signs..." after the SECOND wife sticks her head in the oven? Maybe it really is about YOU, Ted. So, I finally read his poetry because it was part of a gorgeous new set of Faber & Faber poetry editions (which includes Sylvia Plath, one of the aforementioned wives) with specially commissioned artwork. These are fantastic little hardback books that are only available in Britian right now, but you can order from Amazon at an amazing discount and still get free shipping. Highly recommended. As far as Mr. Hughes's work, well, just read "The Lovepet" and I think you will get an idea of how his marriages went.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ted Hughes is my favourite poet and this is a fantastic, but small, collection of the best of his work.

Ted Hughes was not only an excellent poet but an accessible one too. Dylan Thomas wrote good poetry but it was often obscure or unclear what he was trying to say. With Hughes you are not left in any doubt yet he still employs the most wonderful, emotively descriptive language I've come across in any writer. He loved the natural world and immersed himself fully in it.

Particular favourites are 'Hawk Roosting' 'Pike' 'View of a Pig' and 'Tractor' among many others. Simon Armitage, himself a great poet, has made a wonderful collection.

If you are curious about poetry and want to give reading it a try I can't think of a better place to start

[Katheryn Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It is a particular virtue of Hughes's poetry, and one that he shares with only the very best poets, that clarity and complexity can exist simultaneously, like clear, still water, into which a person can see to a ponderous depth." ~ Simon Armitage
I couldn't put it better myself.

[Mariam Abood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning review and alongside Oscar Wilde and Emily Dickinson, Hughes is one of my all time favourite poets. Hawk Roosting was just genius, a beautiful collection of poetry.

[perry · Rating 2 out of 5]

basically i cba to read all these poems at once but technically i'm reading them in lessons when i annotate them so don't attack me
p.s. ted hughes is a wanker lol

[Phoebe · Rating 3 out of 5]

'through a ruin of starlight and crockery/ it drew slowly off they could not move/ it went far away they could not speak'

[edie!! · Rating 4 out of 5]

this had some really good poems, loved the range of different themes and really enjoyed hughes’ style of writing:)

[Ryan Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is interesting to read Ted Hughes in the era of the #metoo movement. It is pretty well accepted that his relationship with his wife, Sylvia Plath, was tumultuous at best and abusive at its worst; many people accuse him of being one of the main reasons for her suicide. And so, one feels a certain guilt about enjoying his poetry. If the current social movements had been in place in the 1960s and 70s, Hughes would have suffered the fate that so many guilty men today are being given.It is the endless conversation about art vs artist. Can I enjoy Michael Jackson's music when it is very likely that he did some really sketchy stuff? Or re-watch a Kevin Spacey performance or Polanski film? Or fall in love with a Caravaggio or Picasso painting? The answer is, of course, but it doesn't come without leaving a bunch of moral and ethical questions unresolved.

In Ted Hughe's case (and Caravaggio, Picasso, etc) one feels a bit more guilt when realizing that, had he been dealt with harshly in the 1960s, we would have missed out on some of his best work. The world would have been less rich, less beautiful, had justice been done. That is where it gets complicated. Now, I'm not saying that artists should get a free pass because they make art, but it does make you think. It forces you to hold two opposing feelings at once: the wish that Roman Polanski had gone to prison and gratitude that he had the opportunity to make The Pianist; satisfaction that Mel Gibson was forced to confront his heinous behaviors and sadness that his wonderful career as a filmmaker will never recover...

But I think it is even more complicated in the case of a poet, whose art is completely personal, requires no social collaboration or validation in order to be made (unlike film, for example). Hughes last volumes of poetry were so intensely personal and biographical, containing many poems that dealt with his memories of Plath. In his poetry we are reminded of the uncomfortable reality that a man is more than just the sum of his faults. Hughes recalls Plath with guilt, regret, and love. These feelings contrast so strongly with the image that history has painted of him that, once again, we are forced to wrestle with a strong set of opposing thoughts and feelings at once. Both sides of Hughes are true. What to do with this fact is up to the reader. But the quality and value of the poetry cannot be denied. I may never love the man, but I love his work. The difficulty is that one would not exist without the other.

But there is some really wonderful stuff in here. I think it’s rare to find a writer that is as good at the start of this game as he is at the end of his life. Ted Hughes is one of those rare people. Reading this collection was really interesting because I got to see how his style changed even as his quality remained intact. And there are certainly stages of his evolution as a writer that I didn’t enjoy as much as others, but I am glad I powered through them because the stuff he wrote at the end of his life might be my favorite. I really want to go out and buy his collection entitled Birthday Letters because they seem to combine his affinity for a mythical and primal poetry with a more tempered and reflective narrative poetry.

[Graham Salisbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the "Poet to Poet" series, a contemporary poet advocates a poet of the past or present whom they particularly admire. By their selection of verses and their critical reactions, the selectors offer intriguing insights into their own work. Hughes himself also features in this series as the selector of poetry by a number of poets including Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson and, almost inevitably, Sylvia Plath.

The 83 poems in this selection of the poetry of Ted Hughes have been carefully chosen by fellow Yorkshireman Simon Armitage. To journey through the collection is akin to be taken on a personal guided tour through an art exhibition guided by the curator himself.

Poems from the major landmarks in the long career of Hughes are all represented here, from 1957's Hawk in the Rain and 1970's Crow to Tales from Ovid (1997) and Birthday Letters (1998) both of which ignited renewed interest in the work of the Poet Laureate towards the end of his life. (Hughes dies in 1998).

Tennyson's epithet of "Nature, Red In Tooth And Claw" could have been tailor-made to apply to much of the work of Hughes which is, as Armitage states in his helpful and personal introduction, often written in a "sort of agricultural dialect of the Bible." Bedtime reading these poems most definitely are not! But whether figuratively poking around in the entrails and broken bones of a farmyard animal ("Ravens" and "February 17th", for example) or dissecting the remains and memories of a concluded relationship, Hughes achieves this with a characteristic tension between delicacy and grittiness.

If there is one minor - and it is only minor - reservation, it is that as the poetry of Ted Hughes is so closely entwined with his relationship with Sylvia Plath, it would be helpful for the individual pieces to be annotated with their date of composition so that the reader could place them within the chronological landscape.

If the purpose of any selection from the work of a great poet is to encourage the reader to explore in further depth the work of the poet, then this small volume has achieved its objective.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

As poets go, Ted Hughes is fairly accessible. His world is the world of nature, of animals, of what I would say are "the natural forces" going against each other. Not always pretty, but beautiful in a way that encapsulates the natural world.

I generally believe, from getting a more longer and broader look, that his early poems are better than the later ones. He was Britain's Poet Laureate from 1984 until he passed away in 1998 and I can't say that I find much in those years that interest me. The Birthday Letters came out in 1998, but are not included in this work (my Selected Poems may not have matched up with Armitage's edition because it is an e book. I believe the years ended in 1994).

The first three books are worth reading. Crow is the best sequence of all, and in my opinion still remains his greatest work. I'm not sure always what to make of them, they are like black comedy with language, but always fun to read -- I say fun because there is a certain inanity to them. The language is strong, thick, powerful, appealing.

To sum up, stay with the works up to Crow, perhaps add Season Songs, and then you will read the best work of Hughes.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

A broad, varied and insightful collection of Hughes work, deftly selected by Armitage (himself, a poet of similar ilk to Hughes).

Some seemed almost repetitive, but then I guess when you're reading one after another, it would appear that way at times.

Overall, well worth a read. The last poems from 'The Tender Place' on p.117, are the crème de la crème of his work, and were a dream to immerse myself in.

[Oshin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard-bound editions are always wonderful.

Ted Hughes' imagery is out of this world. I love the fact that he can be both cryptic and clear at the same time. His poems can be disturbing at times, but they're raw, and honest, and I love that.

With the poems that he's written for Sylvia Plath, you can literally feel the emotion seeping out of the page. It's utterly, utterly magnificent and I hope that I'll be able to write for someone like that one day.

[Harriet · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the texts for my A Level English. I've loved studying Hughes but found I preferred his later stuff (Crow, Birthday Letters) to his earlier poems (Hawk in the Rain, Lupercal, Wodwo). This is a great anthology of his work, really well selected. My favourite poem of his has to be 'Red' (page 135). Incredibly written, deeply affecting. Hughes at his best.

[Nabilah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most poems in this collection revolved around animals, nature and a few is erotic (to me). I love it and admit he is talented. If i don't know anything about him, i would think he is an amazing person worthy to be idolized.

[Ruby · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just couldn't enjoy any of poems without thinking about the pain he caused Sylvia Plath. So on that note- Hated this.

I felt his poems lacked something, I'm not quite sure what it was but it just lacked emotion. Yes we get it... nature is beautiful.

[Charlotte Draper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must say, I prefer Plath to Hughes on the particular English course that I'm doing. I just find his poetry less personal and there's just so much nature involved. Like yeh, we get it, you like crows.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps the best entry to Hughes' work. The selection is impeccable. The introduction is warm and engaging, never stuffy. It is written by a grown man but powered by the boy who never forgot the impression Ted Hughes made on him.

[Lonewheel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whatever you think of him and however history records his part in Plath's end, Hughes could write grand poetry in his own style.

[T.R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection, with some amazing poems, like Jaguar and Midas.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful poetry, my favourite is 'Horses'. If you like poetry abut beauty and land, this is your book. Society's life is ignored for true beauty.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, just wonderful. 'Daffodils' could break your heart.

[Tobias Lindquist · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is hard for me to rate this book. This is roughly my impression: The first third or so was enigmatic and incomprehensible. I hate when people say they don’t ”understand” poetry but … here we are. The second third was mainly well written and atmospheric fragments of story. Not exactly poetry. The final third was deeply moving, musical and heart rending Poetry with a capitol P. Worth reading, of course.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked many of these poems. Reading through this selection makes me realise I like Hughes’ poems about nature and people far more than his metaphysical/philosophical work.
But the book is also disappointing, because it presents no context for any of the poems - no commentary, no dates, no ‘originally published in …’, nothing. Are they in chronological order in this volume? Maybe, but we’re given no clue.
So, my rating is 4-5 stars for the poetry, but only 1 star for the selection/editing.

[Robyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @30%
I found this so hard to follow and therefore concentrate on. I barely knew what I was reading. I'm not very savvy with symbolism and maybe poetry just isn't my cup of tea. I knew what some of these poems were vaguely about but sentence to sentence I was often stumped as to what he meant or was getting at.

[lily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ted Hughes… What can I say about you that hasn’t already been said? Sometimes the syntax, the motion and insistence of the poems, really works — we’re driven through, forward. Moments of sonic intensity/satisfaction. And yet many poems feel overworked (overwrought?) — unexpected words, compounds, and exclamations begin to feel like ornamentation. Hughes is at his best when he doesn’t overdo it.