Edward Thomas (and Robert Frost)
 

This is very good ... https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...-thomas-review

Thanks, David - that is a good review, and I'd not known about Frost's role in the story. I like the Thomas review of Yeats, "moving about in a world where perfect dreams are as cheap as evening papers." That is incisive.

I have to say I find Ted Hughes tedious and bombastic. He is constantly cited in the UK poetry world - as at the end here - and is to my mind underserving of such attention.

Cheers,
John

John, just in case I misled you, the "This is very good" referred to the book itself, which I am currently reading. (You probably got that.)

And let me see if I can change your opinion on Hughes, when he is very good (as he often was, especially earlier on) ... https://genius.com/Ted-hughes-the-bull-moses-annotated

(There's a typo in the transcription, I think.)

Cheers

David

There have been a couple of threads about this before. Here's the last one, with a link to the first one in it.

Duncan

I love Thomas' poetry. A reading of Adlestrop by Richard Burton (yes that Richard Burton) that I heard convinced me to start writing poetry after a long hiatus. It's one I have in my head – great to pull it now and then. That said, I found this book hard rowing. It was very one-note – Thomas as martyr. I too did not know of the Frost/Thomas influence, but it made perfect sense. As to Hughes, though he is celebrated as an observer of animals, to me they are always "Other" in his poems, unlike say the poet's encounter with the Fish in Bishop's poem, or even the skunks at the end of Skunk Hour, by (God help us) Robert Lowell. Only in that prose poem of rescuing the lambing ewe taken straight from his journals, do I see Hughes and the animal joined in any way that is profound.

Have you read Crow, that is a wonderful book, it clawed me into love with it.
Funnily enough, I have a vaguely similar reaction to Thomas and Frost. I would rather have Hughes's othering energy of language and beasts over Thomas or Frost's blandnesses.
There is an lrb article about their relationship that you might like, David.

I have a colleague who has A2 facsimiles of Baskin's illustrations to Crow - an early edition, I think, or a limited print-run - I'd have to ask them -

either way, they are extraordinary. One of the reasons I love broadsides. I wonder if Hughes was hate-able, and if hate-able is the opposite to urbane.

The Dymock poets are what they are, but personally I like it best when they overspill into different worlds, or where they are allowed critically to stray.

I love Robert Graves, though - their elan, their stupid-loveliness.

And then there's Ivor Gurney, whose work I always feel that I should like, but I still can't make myself like it.

Sarah-Jane

I don’t hate Hughes, I just find his poetry bores and sometimes vaguely nauseates me - an interesting combination. But he is most certainly hated by a good number of Sylvia Plath fans.
I’ll take a look at Crow. That may be the book I disliked enough not to open Hughes again for decades. “perfect / pike in all parts” I thought was very nice, but “terrifying are the thrushes on the lawn” I thought remarkable bombast - or as Horace puts it, ridiculus mus.

Cheers,
John

I think Hughes' "translation" of Ovid is sensational. It's often dissed among our crowd because it's done in free verse and apparently isn't the most "accurate" of the bunch, but I found it beautiful and enthralling nonetheless.

I'm with you on Crow, Cameron. Also -- something I only recently found out -- did you know he wrote Crow heavily under the influence of Vasko Popa? And if you don't know Popa, do check him out. I imagine you'd love him. I think he's excellent. I have the Selected Poems translated by Charles Simic, it's very reasonably priced, too.

Matt