Poetry > Ted Hughes Poetry > Ted Hughes (Editor)

Letters to Sylvia

Advantages: fantastic use of language
Disadvantages: sometimes hard going to read.

I bought this book several years ago and have been unable to put it down since! It is an honest and fascinating account of Ted Hughes ultimately tragic relationship with the American Poet Sylvia Plath. The couple met at Cambridge University in 1956 and married shortly after. However, their marriage was turbulent and despite having two children together, they broke up in 1962. A year later Sylvia committed suicide. Ted Hughes refused to comment on ...
...publication of this book in 1998 and for that he was accused of being a heartless, callous husband. However one only has to read it to realise that Hughes loved Sylvia very much. I highly recommend reading "18 Rugby Street" and "Life after death" from this collection if you don't read any others! A beautifully written book. ...

cora_95 04.11.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes

Where is the Black Beast?

Advantages: Dark and wondrous.
Disadvantages: Kinda short. Leaves you wanting more...

...life and songs of the Crow is a collection of poems detailing the life of fictional character Crow, written in 1970 by former poet laureate Ted Hughes. It is regarded as one of the crowning achievements of a long and distinguished career in poetry. Review Imagine, if you will, a being of pure, unalloyed darkness. With neither place nor purpose in God's freshly cast creation. Neither loved nor wanted. A mystery of existence, searching for meaning ...
...Enter Crow. Crow is a legendary creature, living out a mythic existence, transcending time, and even death's cold grip in a world formed of a bizarre blend of various mythologies, deeply entrenched in dense religious symbolism. Crow shares much of the faults and follies of man. He goes through much the same agonies of growing up and trying to find his place in the world. Like mankind, he too lapses into the throes of existential and theological angst. ...

thegoldencat 28.01.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Crow (From the Life and Songs of the Crow) - Ted Hughes

The Unleavened Self

Advantages: Poetry of Coleridge, Essay by Hughes
Disadvantages: Only 160 pages

...died in July 1834. A Choice of Coleridge’s Verse edited and Introduced by Ted Hughes was published by Faber and Faber on March 18th 1996 and is available from most good book shops for £7.99. There are two reasons why this book is so special, the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the introductory essay written by Ted Hughes. Hughes entitled his essay, 'The Snake in the Oak'. Ted Hughes held a belief in the presence of an inner force behind ...
...suggests that Coleridge was fighting a losing battle between a 'Christian Self' and the 'unleavened Self '. Hughes states that it was whilst Coleridge was in this 'unleavened Self' that his three visionary poems, 'Kubla Khan', 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', and 'Christabel' were written. Hughes dramatically presents Coleridge's career as a self-torturing flight from the possibility of a psychic wholeness, a state which he could only achieve by ...

MAFARRIMOND 17.06.2004 · Read full review
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Review of A Choice of Coleridge's Verse - Ted Hughes (Editor)

Great Introdcution to Poetry

Advantages: Nice poems, bright and colourful
Disadvantages: Not as engaging as other childrens books

...really heard before. The cover of the book is bright blue and has the title in nice bubble letters which are all a different colour across the front and lots of different pictures all around this. The back cover is also bright blue and again has lots of pictures covering it showing a variety of different things. Upon opening the book the first page has a lovely little space where your child can write their own name so people will know that the book ...
...of the book and the names of all the poems included. The book is split into 2 different sections the first being, HapolooKangaroo and the second, Higglety, Pigglety, Pop. Both of the sections have 20 poems in. I am not going to individually list all of the poems included in this book as it would make for a massive list but to name just a few we have, Hen’s Song Tiger Hey Diddle Diddle The Kettle Clocks and Watches A Boy Went Walking From the ...

sewbizzie 06.10.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Puffin Book of Fantastic First Poems - June Crebbin

A load of rubbish? nope, pure nonsense!

Advantages: Funny, classics, a way to get kids into poetry, clever...
Disadvantages: None

...years. He is described on the back of my book as 'the inventor of the limerick'. Lear was born in 1812, and throughout his childhood he suffered from epilepsy and depression. He was brought up and educated by two of his sisters, in this education they read him a lot of poetry and taught him to draw, two subjects which I feel the world owes them for A Book of Nonsense was published in 1846, using the pseudonym Derry Down Derry. This wasn't the only ...
...one. Only 6 years later the second edition of the book was published. The Owl and the Pussy Cat, which I'm pretty convinced is the best known of his Nonsense Songs was also the first, written in 1867, and the book Nonsense Songs followed in 1870. Lear died in 1888 at the age of 75. This is a very condensed history, but this is because I am only reviewing he Book of Nonsense and Nonsense Songs. I've researched the claim that Lear was the inventor ...

M.Newcastle 05.10.2009 · Read full review
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Review of The Book of Nonsense And Nonsense Songs - Edward Lear