TED HUGHES

Easy to knock him and even to make fun of his work, a la 'Pike' - 'Pike. Three inches. Perfect', (you get the idea) but he's amazing, really. I haven't read the Birthday Letters yet. Perhaps I will now. Here's something that seemed to me deeply impressive -


Full Moon and Little Frieda

A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket -

And you listening.
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming - mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm wreaths of breath -
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk.

'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!'

The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work

That points at him amazed.