As you may have gathered, last night I finished my Ted Hughes challenge. I started it after I finished my Shakespeare's Complete Works - some time at the end of December 2011.
And, yes, I loved it. I didn't mean to finish it quite so soon, but it became addictive, and aside from Zola at the beginning of the month I have read little else. In fact, such was the deviation, having finished I'm a little lost. I'm even overwhelmed, because Hughes's poetry is deceptively simple. It's written very clearly and concisely on the whole, but it's the subject that's so complex. Like I said last night, it's almost like holding water in my hands. I want to keep it inside me, but there's a danger of it flowing away. I can't quite grasp it all, it is so much to take in, but I suppose a first reading has that effect.
I'll write more soon: right now I'm re-reading Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet by Elaine Feinstein, and I also have Letters of Ted Hughes, selected and edited by Christopher Reid.
Some authors have not survived my twenties. I loved Sylvia Plath, but a re-read lost that love, and I haven't written much on this (and I don't wish to in the near future), but something has gone in Virginia Woolf. I lost the connection, some how. But Ted Hughes did survive, I still love his poetry very much and I find myself still looking for him. You have no idea how much I would have liked to meet him - I even toned the post I wrote last night. I feel a need to connect, but like many of the authors we love, the connection may only be found on paper. There won't be conversations, eye contact, a smile, an acknowledgement. It's entirely one-sided, and I'm so sad at that, so very sad. I can't really communicate that sadness very well, nor can I fully explain it. I feel like something is missing, something I want to achieve is not achieveable, so I will continue a fruitless hunt among paper and ink knowing I won't be satisfied.
I will write more on this, I want to and need to. It's hard to write sensibly, though, so I won't right now. So, I'll conclude with the list: this is what I've read between December 2011 and 9th May, 2012:
- Early Poems and Juvenilla (1946 - 1957)
- The Hawk in the Rain (1957)
- Uncollected (1957 - 1959)
- Lupercal (1960)
- Uncollected (1960 - 1967)
- Recklings (1966)
- Wodwo (1967)
- Uncollected (1967 - 1970)
- Crow (1970)
- Poems (1971)
- Uncollected (1971 - 1973)
- Prometheus on his Crag (1973)
- Uncollected (1974 - 1975)
- Season Songs (1976)
- Uncollected (1976 - 1977)
- Gaudete (1977)
- Uncollected (1977 - 1978)
- Orts (1978)
- Cave Birds (1978)
- Adam and the Sacred Nine (1979)
- Remains of Elmet (1979)
- Uncollected (1979)
- Moortown Diary (1979)
- Earth-Numb (1979)
- Uncollected (1980 - 1981)
- A Primer of Birds (1981)
- Uncollected (1981 - 1983)
- River (1983)
- Uncollected (1983 - 1986)
- Flowers and Insects (1986)
- Uncollected (1987 - 1989)
- Wolfwatching (1989)
- Capricco (1990)
- Rain-Charm for the Duchy (1992)
- Uncollected (1992 - 1997)
- Tales from Ovid (1997)
- Birthday Letters (1998)
- Howls and Whispers (1998)
- Uncollected (1997 - 1998)
Possibly my favourite was Tales from Ovid, though I loved Moortown Diary, too. Really, I loved all of it.
I said Ted Hughes replaced Shakespeare, like Dickens replaced the Woolf challenge, so I wonder what I'll go for next. I think it will be Caterbury Tales, though I am thinking of going through The Complete Edgar Allan Poe. Annoyingly, this will be a financial desicion: I already own the Complete Poe, but despite having three different editions of Canterbury Tales, none of them are complete. The options, I suppose, would be to read what I have until I can afford a complete Tales, or else save up while I read through Poe. I think most likely I'll go for the former option on the grounds that Poe is more of a winter read and I am drawn to Tales. I'll think later.
And I love Ted Hughes.
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