Ted Hughes: 12 Essential Poems

An episode from 10/3/22: Over the course of forty years, Ted Hughes (1930-1998) wrote some of the best poetry of the twentieth (or any) century. Tonight, I read twelve of Hughes’s essential poems, where we see his primal concerns—the violence but also beauty of nature and animal life; mythology and religion; and his own autobiography—expressed in language as powerful as any that has ever been written. The poems are:

• Wind (from the Hawk in the Rain, 1957)
• Six Young Men (from the Hawk in the Rain, 1957)
• Crow's Song About God (from Crow, 1970-71)
• “I skin the skin” (from Gaudete, 1977)
• A Green Mother (from Cave Birds, 1978)
• Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days (from Cave Birds, 1978)
• Cock-Crows (from Remains of Elmet, 1979)
• Rain (from Moortown Diary, 1979)
• February 17th (from Moortown Diary, 1979)
• Four March Watercolours (from River, 1983)
• October Salmon (from River, 1983)
• Life After Death (from Birthday Letters, 1998)
• This is followed by a reading Hughes gave of his poem, “October Salmon.”

Hughes’s poetry can be found in his ⁠Collected Poems⁠. Smaller selections include ⁠Selected Poems 1957-1994⁠ and ⁠A Ted Hughes Bestiary⁠. In this episode I also read from ⁠The Letters of Ted Hughes⁠.

Other episodes on Hughes include ⁠one where he discusses privacy⁠ for his family in the wake of Sylvia Plath’s posthumous fame; another where ⁠he discusses how he discovered poetry⁠; and another, ⁠much longer episode of readings⁠ from Hughes’s poetry.

Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone.

Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to [email protected].