Ted Hughes Honored Today

 

Ted Hughes (left) is honored today by his inclusion at the Poet's Corner in the South Transept of Westminster Abbey.  The practice of honoring  the greatest poets with a tomb or stove is a 600 year tradition in Britain.  (pictured on the right is photo of some of the markers)

The list of those honored before him include the likes of Dryden, Browning, Tennyson, Shelly, Keats, Blake, Hopkins and Eliot.

Hughes' inclusion came after some heavy duty lobby  by a number of poets including Seamus Heaney and Simon Armitage.  Britain's Poet Laureate from 1984 till his death in 1998 on might have though Hughes o be an early lock for the honor.

I've read a number of Ted Hughes' published works. While his first book, Hawk in the Rain is outstanding and won critical acclaim  when published in the late 1950's it is Birthday Letters, published the year he died that I most remember him for.  This work forever links him and his response to the final work of his first wife Sylvia Plath.

I have to say that while Hughes is a masterful poet, I have often wondered how long i would have been before his talents were truly recognized without Sylvia.  I was her belief in Ted and her dogged work typing manuscripts and sending them off that netted his recognition  for Hawk in the Rain. I have always seen Ted as the more laid back Brit and Sylvia with that American ambition driving him forward.

"Last Letter"

The New Statesman publishes a previously unseen work by the late poet laureate Ted Hughes that shed some light on the final days of Sylvia Plath.  Above, Actor Jonathan Pryce reads the poem.

This is sure to start a whole new round of discussion and debate about the Hughes-Plath relationship.

Letter Writing

Snow fell upon our fair city overnight. The ground was covered this morning and the dogs romped in it. It's gone from the roads and much of the yard has already given it up. I haven't heard the forecast but the sky looks like it held some back perhaps for later today.

Yesterday, a rejection letter visited my e-mail. I guess that means I'm just one more no closer to a yes.

I've started reading Letters of Ted Hughes, and while I am not far along in the book yet, I've realized that even in general correspondence with family and friends he was masterful with language. His descriptive examples often quite poetic. There is no amount of creativity lost from his ordinary writing, which is really to say there is nothing quite ordinary about his writing at all.

With letter writing all but dead in this day and age, I imagine anyone still doing it would be hard pressed to make their letters quite as interesting as Ted did. I am certain that as I get further along in the chronology of this book I will discover other most interesting facts about Hughes and as well as those in his circle of influence. I do so enjoy the biographical and psychological aspect of the lives of poets through their journals and letters. It's not quite voyeuristic but I suppose it is a bit like looking for the pathology within a poet's mind.

At any rate, you can count on me posting any other significant observations as I read on. 

Technorati Tags: Letter writing,Letters of Ted Hughes

Food for the Imagination

 At the left is a maple flavored coffee drink that I indulged in while back  at a poetry reading/book signing event. I think maple has to be my favorite flavor.  I should have been born in New Hampshire or some other northeastern state.  I'd have my own maple tree tapped and would lie under it and let it drip into my mouth. Okay, it wouldn't do anything foe my diabetes, but it would sure improve my disposition.

I broke down yesterday and ordered a copy of Letters of Ted Hughes (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, edited by Christopher Reid.  Since I have an extensive collection of books on Hughes and Plath, it would only be fitting that I add this to my collection. There is however a larger reason to the purchase. I find the journals and correspondence of poets to be fascinating. I've managed to read all or most of several such works. Sexton, Lowell, Ginsberg Letters, and Plath's Letters Home as well as Journals. The Poets Notebook which has excerpts of the journals musings of some 26 poets. I always think know more about a poet and what goes on in there mind should enhance our appreciation for their work. Of course I'm not sure that I can prove anything in particular by reading and studying such writings, but it is interesting to allow one to draw broader conclusions at times based on the expanded knowledge of a poet that comes with reading their letters or journals. These conclusions may or may not have much validity, but the speculation feeds the creative imagination of one's own brain.  And oh how I love to feed the imagination.

Technorati Tags: Ted Hughes Letters,journals,correspondence,poets,imagination

Diane Middlebrook - Poet & biographer dies of cancer

Diane Middlebrook - perhaps best known for her book, Anne Sexton- a biography, died this weekend of cancer. Middlebrook was 68 and had taught in the English department at Stanford. She is also the author of Her Husband: Hughes and Plath, a Marriage a 2003 best selling biography.

Poetry in the News - Sunday Night

A few stories of interest -

• Letters of Ted Hughes reveals a fascinatingly honest man (click)
• Poetry of Protest - a story from Iran (click)
• John Ashbery & Robert Lowell - Two great American poets but very different (click)
• Robert Pinsky has perfected a kind of multicultural poetic shorthand (click)

Giving Up - a memoir

I've finished reading Giving Up - The Last Days of Sylvia Plath by Jillian Becker. This small memoir now joins the dozens of biographical books and essays I have read about Sylvia and Ted.

This book is quite small. It need not be extensive because Jillian's contact with Sylvia was indeed short and the book only relates to that short period of days prior to Sylvia's death, when she sought refuge for her children from her distressed state with Jillian and Gerry Becker.

Much of what I read is merely another historical account of those days. As far as new perspective, it provides little, but perhaps a tad closer look Sylvia from a first hand perspective.

The most interesting things are:

• Jillian's assessment that Dido Merwin truly could not stand Sylvia but was quite fond of Ted and saw him as an equal in stature to his husband Bill. This is not surprising, as the tone of this is set in the Anne Stevenson book "Better Fame." I suppose it was nice hearing someone else say what I believed I has surly not mistaken in reading Stevenson's biographical account.
• Jillian's view that Sylvia had perhaps lost her passion for poetry at the end. This based on the fact that she was critical of Sylvia's last poems and thought them to be doggerel rhythms that seemed to stamp on the grave of poetry. She may not have liked Sylvia's poems, but the ones on question are among Sylvia's most powerful and passionate works. Once she was finished with them, perhaps she might have been drained emotionally, but It is hard for me to consider them a sign of a loss of passion. They are full of it!
• Jillian Becker expressions about her own emotional response to Sylvia's life and death are expressed in heartfelt terms. She truly was in a unique position those final days, and some have perhaps suggested that she and Gerry (as well as others) could have and should have done more to save her. Her response to these suggestions is very reasonable. They may have kept Sylvia alive a few extra days, but they did not have the power to change the many external issues that added to Sylvia's issues. Jillian herself describes herself as a poet (though a humble one by the company she kept) and one addicted to poetry. She says she grew out of that addiction due at least in part to the painful involvement in the lives of poets. (Ted, Sylvia, Assia & her husband - perhaps others with which she was acquainted with)
• It was noted that Sylvia left no suicide note. Not new information, but she reminded readers that the final poems she left would have been painfully clear to Ted if no one else.
• The issue Jillian took with Ted's poem Dreamers, which she calls sickeningly anti-Semitic and the explanation she offered.
• The fact that while Jillian and Gerry were present at Sylvia's funeral, there is no mention of the mystery man (mentioned in other accounts) in her account of those in attendance.
• Taking issue with Sylvia's iconic stature by the feminist movement.

These are what I found most notable among pages (roughly 75) of the short memoir which is now a part of extensive Plath biographical reads.

Shock waves - Times Online

Shock waves - Times Online: "July 30, 2007

Shock waves -Frieda Hughes: poetry
The Diameter of the Bomb
(by Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000),
translated by Yehuda Amichai and Ted Hughes,
Selected Poems edited by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort, Faber) "

Read the Poem and Commentary by Frieda Hughes

Tuesday Misc News...

Poetry fans gather for Ted Hughes's festival.

On a sad note: The poet Rahim al-Maliki wrote about his dreams of Iraqi unity in a place where such appeals are drowned out by daily bombings. One of them took his life on Monday.

NPR feature / More on Guantanamo Poetry. Plus more on the book of poems from Nafeesa Syeed here.

Dick Cheneny fails at American Civics.

Senator Richare Lugar changes tune on Iraq. Lugar called on Bush to "downsize" the U.S. military's role in Iraq and place more emphasis on diplomatic and economic options

Andrew Ervin reviews The Age of Huts (compleat) - By Ron Silliman

Stick Poet went over the 29,000 unique visitors milestone this past weekend. Thanks to all the SPSH readers. By the way, if you are not getting our syndicated feed of each day's posts by email and would like to, see the box in the sidebar to sign up to receive it that way. It's easy.

Early Residence of Plath & Hughes For Sale

55 Eltisley Avenue, in Cambridge is for sale. The address was the home of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes from October of 1956 to May of 1957. One of their especially creative and highly productive periods.The property also figures in poetry written by both poets at one time or another.

In the days when the famous couple made Eltisley Avenue their home, the property was divided into two flats.

Today the property is a specious four bedroom home
that is presently listed at $550,000 pounds or about $ 1,098,462.

long-haired sylvia looking for her ted....

What a gratifying way to start your Monday morning. You open you email and read:

"Thanks for submitting these. I'm happy to accept them. They will do nicely in the next issue... I hope these won't be the last I'll see from you"

I am so easily amused. I enjoy looking to see what kinds of searches bring people to this site. As I have reported in the past, there are some truly interesting things that pop up. Among the greats is this first timer that came up today:

• long-haired sylvia looking for her ted

followed by some others that often reoccur or at least come up in similar fashion...

• published superhero poem (multiple times)
• nude super heroes (multiple times)
• super hero poem
• i am a superhero quote
• superhero poems (multiple times)
• when life gets you down superhero quotes
• question of interview of super hero
• a superhero of kansas
• meaning of earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with god (don't ask me, I just report these)

So there are a few and I am sure you begin to realize as I have the common theme of superhero resurfacing over and over. In the past I've has some other interesting variations of Stick Poet. Thinks like beating poets with sticks, sticky poets, poet superheros, stick people poets... it goes on.

These searchers must be terribly disappointed not to find super hero poems here. I have never written one. Though I have been tempted, I have resisted. Perhaps feeling too close to the subject. So just for fun... ( remember I am easily amused) consider this a call for poems about a superhero. Not any superhero mind you, but "Stick Poet" superhero.

For the next week, e-mail me your best effort at a Stick Poet Superhero poem. I promise I'll post them all on here ( the good, the bad, and the ugly) and then you can all vote on the best one. In the end, those who keep coming here in search of super hero poems will at last feel there Google searches are not have been in vain.

Perhap.. ok definately my last Meme of 2006

Mini-meme I got From Ivy's blog.

• Find the nearest book.
• Turn to page 123.
• Go to the fifth sentence on the page.
• Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.
• Name the book and the author,
• and tag three more folks.

"This was Lyonnesse. /Inaccessible clouds, submarine trees / The labyrinth / Of brambly burrow lanes. Bundled women- / Stump-warts, you called them- / Sniffling at your strangeness in wet shops. /

Book: Birthday Letters - Author: Ted Hughes

hum... [drumming fingers and thinking] I guess I will tag:

1. Christine - because she has so much extra time on her hands ;)
2. James - because I haven't picked on him lately
3. Robert - Because he takes it so well when I pick on him

Poet's memorial riddle solved

Five years of secrecy over the location of a memorial to the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes have come to an end.
BBC Spotlight's environment correspondent Simon Hall has spent two years searching for the site on Dartmoor in Devon. He was helped by a guide, and used clues in Ted Hughes' will and his work. [full story]