The world of natural forces as Hughes presents it in his first two books tends to be grim and oppressive. He admires the energy and vitality that resist death but presents them in terms of violent self-assertion or stubborn endurance. There\u2019s not much softness. He even describes a snowdrop as<\/p>\n
Brutal as the stars of this month,
\nHer pale head heavy as metal.<\/p>\n
In life, though, Hughes is described as having been easy-going, tender and affectionate. Softer tones come into his poetry in Wodwo<\/em>, his third book. Much of his later work is remarkable for its magical, loving touch in evoking fragile, vulnerable things and its ability to convey the wonder and joy of life. I\u2019m particularly fond of a book called Season Songs<\/em>, written partly with children in mind. It begins with a poem about a March calf. Here there’s a buoyant, whole-hearted celebration of energy and wonder, self-delight and harmony between the calf and its world:<\/p>\n Soon he\u2019ll plunge out, to scatter his seething joy, \u201cSpring Nature Notes\u201d opens with a line of calm beauty \u2013 \u201cThe sun lies mild and still on the yard stones\u201d \u2013 and goes on to describe the eagerly burgeoning life of spring in rhythms whose airy lightness is unimaginable in Lupercal<\/em> or The Hawk in the Rain<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the whole air struggling in soft excitements Power has a new sweetness in this world, whether it be the power of light \u2013<\/p>\n Over the whole land or the strength of trees carrying the weight of their new leaves in the conclusion to \u201cApril Birthday\u201d.<\/p>\n Such impressions suffuse the whole volume. Crucially, though, there\u2019s nothing soft focus about it. It also records pain, mishap and death. \u201cSheep I\u201d and \u201cSheep II\u201d are both reprinted from Moortown Diaries<\/em>. The march of the seasons pitilessly overwhelms many small lives. \u201cA Cranefly in September\u201d describes a dying cranefly with beautifully tender particularity. At the end,<\/p>\n The sky\u2019s northward September procession, the vast soft armistice, One of my favourite Season Songs is \u201cThe Seven Sorrows\u201d describing the deaths and losses autumn brings. But even when the bite of winter is most keenly felt, the seeds of life are waiting to burst forth with the return of spring, as in \u201cThe Warm and the Cold\u201d.<\/p>\n So joy in later Hughes is not bought by sentimentality. His theme is still the necessity of accepting the order of being as a whole, seeing and accepting the interdependence of creation and destruction, life and death, joy and loss, but now with emphasis falling on gratitude for and joy in what is given. This seems to me a wiser, more balanced response to life than the one we have in his first two books and I want to close with \u201cOctober Salmon\u201d, a poem that expresses such a vision with particular power.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The world of natural forces as Hughes presents it in his first two books tends to be grim and oppressive. He admires the energy and vitality that resist death but presents them in terms of violent self-assertion or stubborn endurance. There\u2019s not much softness. He even describes a snowdrop as Brutal as the stars of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ted-hughes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2034"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2040,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034\/revisions\/2040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTo be present at the grass,
\nTo be free on the surface of such a wideness,
\nTo find himself himself. To stand. To moo.<\/p>\n
\nLike a woman hurrying into her silks.
\nBirds everywhere zipping and unzipping
\nChanging their minds in soft excitements,
\nWarming their wings and trying their voices<\/p>\n
\nSpring thunders down in brilliant silence \u2013<\/p>\n
\nLike an Empire on the move,
\nAbandons her, tinily embattled
\nWith her cumbering limbs and cumbered brain.<\/p>\n