Thursday, December 08, 2011

'So we found the end of our journey, So we stood alive in the river of light, Among the creatures of light, creatures of light.' - Ted Hughes

The ceremony to memorialise Ted Hughes in Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey took place on Tuesday. His plaque lies below T.S. Eliot's and alongsideTennyson's. In celebration I've started re-reading 'Epic Poise: A Celebration of Ted Hughes', edited by Nick Gammage, a wonderful collection of essays on the life and work of Hughes by a variety of contributors including Seamus Heaney, Blake Morrison, Andrew Motion, W.S. Mervin, Peter Redgrove and Kathleen Raine. You can see some news coverage of the ceremony here.

4 comments:

Titus said...

Sounds like a book I could do with reading. I'm still not hugely Hughes.

Marion McCready said...

it's a great collection of essays, I like Hughes but I have to be in the mood to read him.

James Owens said...

It is an interesting tension between the news people and the poets they interview -- the media types keep trying to direct interest toward the old soap opera, while the poets keep tugging it back toward the work.... A little jealous, from a US perspective. It's hard to imagine this kind of attention for a poet here.

Marion McCready said...

yes, you can't have Hughes without the Plath drama! I'm surprised that's the case in the US, they can only handle one poetry story at a time here - this week has also seen two poets withdraw their books from the TS Eliot shortlist but there's been very little coverage of that!