"Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed, turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation, some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self." -- Ted Hughes

For the Canadian judge, see Ted Hughes .

Edward James Hughes OM (17 August 193028 October 1998), more commonly known as Ted Hughes, was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.

Hughes was married to the American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until her death by suicide in 1963 at the age of 30. His part in the relationship became controversial to some feminists and (particularly) American admirers of Plath. Hughes himself never publicly entered the debate, but his last poetic work, Birthday Letters (1998), explored their complex relationship. These poems make reference to Plath's suicide, but none of them addresses directly the circumstances of her death. A poem discovered in October 2010, Last letter, describes what happened during the three days leading up to Plath's suicide.

In 2008 The Times ranked Hughes fourth on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". On 22 March 2010, it was announced that Hughes would be commemorated with a memorial in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, to be installed in early 2011.

Quotes more less

Life and Career more less

Early life

Hughes was born on 17 August 1930 at 1 Aspinal Street, in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire to William Henry and Edith (née Farrar) Hughes and raised among the local farms in the area. According to Hughes, "My first six years shaped everything." When Hughes was seven his family moved to Mexborough, South Yorkshire, where they ran a newsagents and tobacco shop. His brother Gerald was 10 years older and his sister Olwyn, two years older. He attended Mexborough Grammar School, where his teachers encouraged him to write. In 1946 one of his early poems, "Wild West" and a short story were published in the grammar school magazine The Don and Dearne, followed by further poems in 1948.

During the same year Hughes won an Open Exhibition in English at Pembroke College, Cambridge, but chose to do his National Service first. His two years of National Service (1949—51) passed comparatively easily. Hughes was stationed as a ground wireless mechanic in the RAF on an isolated three-man station in east Yorkshire ... a time of which he mentions that he had nothing to do but read and reread Shakespeare and watch the grass grow.

Career

Hughes studied English, anthropology and archaeology at Pembroke College. At this time his first published poetry appeared in the journal he started with fellow students, St. Botolph's Review, and at a party to launch the magazine he met Sylvia Plath. He and Plath married at St George the Martyr Holborn on 16 June 1956, four months after they had first met.

Hughes and Plath had two children, Frieda Rebecca and Nicholas Farrar, but separated in the autumn of 1962. He continued to live at Court Green, North Tawton, Devon irregularly with his lover Assia Wevill after Plath's death on 11 February 1963. As Plath's widower, Hughes became the executor of Plath’s personal and literary estates. He oversaw the publication of her manuscripts, including Ariel (1966). He also claimed to have destroyed the final volume of Plath’s journal, detailing their last few months together. In his foreword to The Journals of Sylvia Plath, he defends his actions as a consideration for the couple's young children.

On 25 March 1969, six years after Plath's suicide by asphyxiation from a gas stove, Assia Wevill committed suicide in the same way. Wevill also killed her child, Alexandra Tatiana Elise (nicknamed Shura), the four-year-old daughter of Hughes, born on 3 March 1965.

In August 1970 Hughes married Carol Orchard, a nurse, and they remained together until his death.

Death

He was appointed a member of the Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth II just before he died. Hughes continued to live at the house in Devon, until his fatal myocardial infarction in a Southwark, London hospital on 28 October 1998, while undergoing treatment for colon cancer. His funeral was held on 3 November 1998, at North Tawton church, and he was cremated in Exeter. Speaking at the funeral, fellow poet Séamus Heaney, said: "No death outside my immediate family has left me feeling more bereft. No death in my lifetime has hurt poets more. He was a tower of tenderness and strength, a great arch under which the least of poetry's children could enter and feel secure. His creative powers were, as Shakespeare said, still crescent. By his death, the veil of poetry is rent and the walls of learning broken. A memorial walk was inaugurated in 2005, leading from the Devon village of Belstone to Hughes' memorial stone above the River Taw, on Dartmoor.

[[Nicholas Hughes]], the son of Hughes and Plath, committed suicide on 16 March 2009 after battling [[clinical depression|depression]].

Writings more less

Selected Works more less

Poetry collections

1957 The Hawk in the Rain
1960 Lupercal
1967 Wodwo
1970 From the Life and the Songs of the Crow
1972 Selected Poems 1957-1967
1975 Cave Birds
1977 Gaudete
1979 Remains of Elmet (with photographs by Fay Godwin)
1979 Moortown
1983 River
1986 Flowers and Insects
1989 Wolfwatching
1992 Rain-charm for the Duchy
1994 New Selected Poems 1957-1994
1997 Tales from Ovid
1998 Birthday Letters — winner of the 1998 Forward Poetry Prize for best collection, the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize, and the 1999 British Book of the Year award.
2003 Collected Poems

Volumes of translation

Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind
Blood Wedding by Federico García Lorca
1977 Amen by Yehuda Amichai, Amen, Harper (New York, NY)
1968 Yehuda Amichai, Selected Poems Cape Goliard Press (London, England), revised edition published as Poems, Harper (New York, NY), 1969.
1997 Tales from Ovid by Ovid Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (New York, NY)
1999 The Oresteia by Aeschylus, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (New York, NY)
1999 Phèdre by Jean Racine, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (New York, NY),
1999 Alcestis by Euripides, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (New York, NY)

Anthologies edited by Hughes

Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson
Selected Poems of Sylvia Plath
Selected Verse of Shakespeare
A Choice of Coleridge's Verse
The Rattle Bag (edited with Séamus Heaney)
The School Bag (edited with Séamus Heaney)
By Heart: 101 Poems to Remember
The Mays

Short story collection

1995 The Dreamfighter, and Other Creation Tales. Faber and Faber (London, England)
1995 Difficulties of a Bridegroom: Collected Short Stories. Picador (New York, NY)

Prose

1967 Poetry in the Making: An Anthology of Poems and Programmes from "Listening and Writing. Faber (London) 1967.
1992 Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (New York)
1993 A Dancer to God Tributes to T. S. Eliot. (Editor) Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (New York)
1994 Winter Pollen: Occasional Prose. (Essay collection) . Edited by William Scammell, Faber (London). Picador USA (New York) 1995.

Books for children

Meet my Folks!
How the Whale Became
The Earth Owl and Other Moon-People
Nessie the Mannerless Monster
1970 Poetry Is
The Iron Man
Coming of the Kings and Other Plays
Season Songs
Moon-Whales
Moon-Bells
Under the North Star
Ffangs the Vampire Bat and the Kiss of Truth
Tales of the Early World
The Iron Woman
The Dreamfighter and Other Creation Tales
Collected Animal Poems: Vols. 1–4
The Mermaid's Purse

The Cat and the Cuckoo

Plays

The House of Aries (radio play), broadcast, 1960.
The Calm produced in Boston, MA, 1961.
A Houseful of Women (radio play), broadcast, 1961.
The Wound (radio play; also see below), broadcast, 1962
Difficulties of a Bridegroom (radio play), broadcast, 1963.
Epithalamium produced in London, 1963.
Dogs (radio play), broadcast, 1964.
The House of Donkeys (radio play), broadcast, 1965.
The Head of Gold (radio play), broadcast, 1967.
The Coming of the Kings and Other Plays (juvenile)
The Price of a Bride (juvenile; radio play), broadcast, 1966.

Adapted Seneca's Oedipus (produced in London 1968)

Orghast produced in Persepolis, Iran, 1971.

Eat Crow Rainbow Press (London, England), 1971.

The Iron Man (based on his juvenile book; televised, 1972).

Orpheus 1973.

Limited editions

The Burning of the Brothel (Turret Books, 1966)
Recklings (Turret Books, 1967)
Scapegoats and Rabies (Poet & Printer, 1967)
Animal Poems (Richard Gilbertson, 1967)
A Crow Hymn (Sceptre Press, 1970)
The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar (Richard Gilbertson, 1970)
Crow Wakes (Poet & Printer, 1971)
Shakespeare's Poem (Lexham Press, 1971)
Eat Crow (Rainbow Press, 1971)
Prometheus on His Crag (Rainbow Press, 1973)
Crow: From the Life and the Songs of the Crow (Illustrated by Leonard Baskin, published by Faber & Faber, 1973)
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter (Rainbow Press,1974)
Cave Birds (Illustrated by Leonard Baskin, published by Scolar Press, 1975)
Earth-Moon (Illustrated by Ted Hughes, published by Rainbow Press, 1976)
Eclipse (Sceptre Press, 1976)
Sunstruck (Sceptre Press, 1977)
A Solstice (Sceptre Press, 1978)
Orts (Rainbow Press, 1978)
Moortown Elegies (Rainbow Press, 1978)
The Threshold (Illustrated by Ralph Steadman, published by Steam Press, 1979)
Adam and the Sacred Nine (Rainbow Press, 1979)
Four Tales Told by an Idiot (Sceptre Press, 1979)
The Cat and the Cuckoo (Illustrated by R.J. Lloyd, published by Sunstone Press, 1987)
A Primer of Birds: Poems (Illustrated by Leonard Baskin, published by Gehenna Press, 1989)
Capriccio (Illustrated by Leonard Baskin, published by Gehenna Press, 1990)
The Mermaid's Purse (Illustrated by R.J. Lloyd, published by Sunstone Press, 1993)

Howls and Whispers (Illustrated by Leonard Baskin, published by Gehenna Press, 1998)

Many of Ted Hughes' poems have been published as limited-edition broadsides.

Bibliography more less

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ted Hughes", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0

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