... power cut. Anyway, I rather like a bit of poetry & I've tried Ted Hughes;

I'm afraid I find him clunky & willfully obscure. Viz

When Crow cried his mother's ear
Scorched to a stump.

When he laughed she wept
Blood her breasts her palms her brow all wept blood.

He tried a step, then a step, and again a step -
Every one scarred her face for ever.

When he burst out in rage
She fell back with an awful gash and a fearful cry.

When he stopped she closed on him like a book
On a bookmark, he had to get going.

He jumped into the car the towrope
Was around her neck he jumped out.

He jumped into the plane but her body was jammed in the jet -
There was a great row, the flight was cancelled.

He jumped into the rocket and its trajectory
Drilled clean through her heart he kept on

etc.

How is this searching for a way of reconciling human vision with the energies, powers, presences of the non-human cosmos? It just reads like clumsy anthropomorphic gobbledygook to me.
Poetry doesn't have to rhyme, doesn't have to make logical sense, but it has to sound right. This sounds like the poetic equivalent of marbles rattling in a tin.

Wordsworth isn't my favourite poet by some distance, but some of his imagery was sublime.

Compare & contrast the above to Wm. Blake's The Tyger.

I know it's all taste & opinion, but I cannot see for the life of me how Hughes' efforts justify the comments you made praising it.

Posted By: dennis moore on July 26th 2017 at 21:19:42

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