HUNTING HUGHES

With our comments on Bishop echoing still in my brain (our discussions of poetry illuminating our own experiences and of my hesitant asking of “so what”), I read most of Ted Hughes’s collection from a deck overlooking a portion of the Gulf that is relatively free from tourist trade– a rather appropriate scene for digesting Hughes’s recurring glorifications of the natural world. On the particular afternoon I came across “Ghost Crabs” (I think originally collected in “Wodwo”), I was coincidentally recovering from a late night of crab-hunting. My Daddy and brother, two righteously committed sportsmen, pass up no opportunity to hunt down anything in their environs that might be tracked, caught, and either put to good use or released back into the natural habitat. And they convinced me to (uncharacteristically) join their expedition for crabs, particularly ghost crabs as they had spotted several already but were unprepared to capture them. Thus, with a trained labrador retriever leading the way, we set out with nets, and other implements they assured me would be necessary, to hunt down crabs by moonlight. Ultimately, we succeeded in catching only one– such a minuscule catch that everyone else deemed our effort a failure. Reading “Ghost Crabs” the following afternoon, however, I felt the hunt much more satisfying than the poem.

As any “good” graduate student would/does, I of course had to consider why, what accounts for this effect (or lack of it), and what are the implications of it, etc. Again, I was still mulling over Bishop so decided to use my response to her collection as a point of comparison. As you all know, Bishop’s poems I like best are those of South America (and also, “Filling Station” as I’m sure I’ve been to that exact one) because I can “see them better,” drawing on my own personal experiences to make sense of hers. This logic, however, doesn’t in any way account for my response to Hughes (Ted, not Langston), who produced a number of poems I can “see” without much effort but still left me asking, “so what” (though I’m certain I learned a little something about the reproductive habits of sheep and other livestock, and the mating rituals of insects). This set me about contemplating the inadequacy of language to convey our experiences to others: I would rather hunt for crabs myself than read Hughes’s poem about them (similarly, back to Langston, much as I adore his work, I would rather be on Beale Street than to read his poem about it). It seems that with Hughes (Ted) this inadequacy of language becomes particularly emphasized because of his subject matter.

Indeed, the (constructed) tension between the natural world and the written language we (not just Ted) try to impose upon it is introduced immediately with “The Thought-Fox” (at least this is the first selection in my edition, yes?). (I’m aware that this dangers on setting up a dichotomy between nature/culture, or something along those lines, and I don’t think that this is always the case. For all of my grappling with Bishop, she seems to reconcile the two adeptly; and of course the imagined presence of such a tension is a very “Western” idea.) Okay, so Hughes’s inspiration comes from nature, but is he caging it, or trying to, in the same manner he describes the effect of a zoo on the very next page (“The Jaguar”)? Hughes seems to be aware of this conundrum, as evidenced in “The Man Seeking Experience...” and “The Crow’s First Lesson” in which God’s attempts to teach the crow to speak result only in its vomiting. Hughes also often describes a sort of feeling-out-of-place-ness when fishing or engaging in some other outdoor activity (“Recklings,” “Earth-Numb,” “A Cormorant”). Significantly, in “Go Fishing” as Hughes/the speaker is describing a sort of transcendent union with nature, one of the effects of “Join[ing the] water” is to “lose words.”

But, interestingly, Hughes has the natural world speak (thistles are like “the gutturals of dialects” (“Thistles”), dandelions and cinders “cry” “‘Do not go’” (“Song of a Rat”)– though the rat can only “screech,” and of course the speaking produce, fowl, elements, etc., in “Leaves”– but with the addition of a tractor(?); similarly, the river has a conspicuously italicized speaking line in “Salmon Eggs,” and whale-speak occupies several stanzas in quotation in “Little Whale Song”). Other times, Hughes speaks for nature– assuming the perspective/persona of a hawk in “Hawk Roosting” or of a crow in “A Flayed Crow...” (There also seem to be an awful lot of poems entitled “Such and such’s Song” (replace the “such and such” with any animal you can conceive of), especially in selections from “Crow.”)

Despite his recognition of this tension, Hughes continues, over a period of thirty-plus years, to attempt to invoke it, evade it, resolve it, and I’m not sure he ever accomplishes the last– an issue which recalls this business about Eliot (T.S.) setting himself a task, accomplishing it, and then no longer feeling a need to write poetry. In other words, never reconciling the (constructed) tension between nature and language, perhaps Hughes couldn’t put the pen down so to speak.

Ultimately, I must confess that all of this prattling about Ted’s inability to reconcile a tension (I don’t necessarily even believe exists) between language and the natural world is mostly an attempt to evade another one of this themes– his presentation of gender and sexuality and an apparent fascination with Adam/Eve mythology. I wanted to give Ted “his due,” so I’ve avoided this last matter for now, though I’m sure I’ve a better understanding of why Sylvia put her head in an oven.

Comments

[sburris]

Rereading Hughes was an invigorating experience for me. I see Hughes as the great import / export poet of the English language . . . he takes in the heavily syllabic Anglo-Saxon/Germanic word hoard, and he gives back a bristled vision of the human animal, of the human as animal, that I still find fresh and convincing.

There are many poems that we can talk about, but what I find most arresting is his early and double-barrelled ability to write two kinds of poems as evidenced in "The Thought-Fox," or "The Horses," and in a poem like "Six Young Men." The first two represent the Hughes that most all readers know: this is the Hughes of the nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw vision, but with a twist: nature's violent energy provides a life-giving transfusion to the creative energies of the poet as long as the poet's imagination is strong enough--manly enough!--to effect that vital transformation from a violent impersonal engergy to a valid creative expression. And in fact, that transformative process becomes, often enough, the subject of the poem. (James Dickey's poems come to mind here too.) This is deeply Romantic--think Shelley in "Alastor," for example--but Romantic in a different era entirely, with different strains and stress-points that blur the Romanticism a bit.

But the other kind of poetry, the poetry of "Six Young Men," is equally Hughesian, and in fact seems to me best read as a detail of the other poetry, the more obviously violent poetry. Here, in "Six Young Men," we get real figures, of real conformity, etched against the devouring world of war and mortality. The focus of the poem is on the utter banality of the men, their jauntiness, if you will, on the frail gestures of young manhood that time and war will erase.

These erasures, I believe, are part of the power that Hughes finds in his more violent, nature poems. But here, in "Six Young Men," he has taken the long focus for a moment, and seen the human experiment against the rich tapestry of mortality that will end our most heroic efforts, our most articulate expression.

So what I find in Hughes early on is an unusually complete vision of living and dying. I don't know how far we can trace this throughout his writing, but it seems prominent from the beginning.

[Jack Ayres]

My reaction to Hughes was quite different than Amy's. Not only was my specific reaction to this poet different, but it seems our ways of reading poetry differ too. I don't necessarily need or prefer to have a point of comparison in order to visualize or understand a poem better. Obviously, some common points of reference are necessary simply for comprehension, and a poem can be especially moving if it seems to speak to a specific and personal experience. However, I just don't depend or priviledge that personal connection too much. If I did, there'd be a whole lot of art I couldn't appreciate. Also, the "so what" question or function of art isn't terribly important to me; I guess I'm like Oscar Wilde in that way. Placing too much on a real-world effect of art in general or poetry in particular seems problematic. Not only is the cause-and-effect relationship between society/politics and art terribly difficult to prove or demonstrate, but when we considers the primary function of art to be a political one, we begin to drift dangerously toward propaganda and negate the beauty of a lot of art.

Which brings me to Hughes.

I find it upsetting to think of people reading Hughes (or Bishop, or anyone else) and say, "Ok, it's a nice poem about nature--but so what?" Both Bishop's and Hughes's write beautiful poetry, and I found Hughes to be particularly striking and consistent.

There is a phrase in Hughes's "October Salmon" that I found somewhat indicative of his work: "the savage amazement of life" (264). There is something savage and romantic and powerful in Hughes's descriptions of nature, both big and small. I was moved and impressed by the depictions of life and the struggle for survival. There are poems about lambs, spiders, and soldiers, but throughout it all is a sense of all living things working to live in harmonious disharmony. I don't see his nature poems as allegories for "the human condition" or some other trite expression; yet, there is something transcendent and powerful in his writing.

I think that the ability to conjure up such visceral feelings of unity with nature--working toward articulating some intuitive understanding of the experience of being alive--is a vital function of art, even if it may not produce clearly seen social or material results.

[Margaret Poist]

I agree with Amy that Hughes seems to construct the tension between humanity and nature in a way that can be alienating for me as the reader. Though I enjoyed his poetry, I found many of the dramatic dives into, as Burris puts it "a bristled vision of the human animal" offputting once I finished them: his ability to describe the dark, overpowering thrall that nature sets in him impresses me, yet I didn't find the poems to bring me to a similar viewpoint about nature, instead I was...impressed..with Hughes, not so much with nature. (Certianly, I realize that to have the expectation that Hughes create in me a response to nature similar to his is lofty, and brings up Amy's musings that maybe it is impossible for language to convey such experiences.) But the kind of awe at, for example, the sublimity of the fox (or the ghost crabs that run the world or the jaguar at the zoo) seems kind of histrionic. Strange, because I very much relate to the Romantic notion of the sublime as a force that creates terror, wonder, and adrenaline in terms of nature--I've always loved the drama of the woods, the mountains, and the wary animals that inhabit them. And I love Romantic poetry, which is, I don't need to point out, repleat with histrionic awe at nature (and certainly there are many twisted hints of Romanticism in "The Fox," particularly in terms of Wordsworth's idea of the poet as the vessel for the muse of nature and Hughes's darker idea of "the dark hole of the head" being filled with the "sharp hot stink of fox.")

I have my own theory about why I am patient with and intruigued by the Big Romantic Freakout that happens in the face of nature: I think that the Romantic's attention to form, and I am thinking in particular of Keats here, propels the verse in a way that creates an adrenaline response (in me at least) which somewhat simulates an encounter with the sublime. For a paper, I have spent much time with "Ode to a Nightingale," a poem which I started out liking a lot, quickly finding myself hating it because it just made me feel crazed to read it, and which I ended up loving because I was vastly impressed with the stylistic tactics that Keats uses to infuse his verse with histrionic energy. I donn't find that Hughes's writing creates that kind of energy in me, and I am not exactly sure why. It very well may be a symptom of my lack of comfort with more modern poetry form, because Hughes certainly uses structure to organize his writing, but perhaps I am not yet used to it enough to understand how structure energizes his writing.

Just a note on "Ghost Crabs": Amy, do you think that perhaps you enjoyed your actual encounter with ghost crabs more than your encounter with them through the poem because Hughes's vision of them in the poem is so...I don't know...creepy ("Where only crabs listen/ They God's toys"...it all seems very sinister to me)? The lone crab in your adventure sounded a little less threatening.

Mention the sublime when you talk about Wordsworth.

[Margaret Poist]

Uh..disregard the final line of my post...just a little note to myself that I forgot to erase. Cheers.

[Jack Ayres]

Our chosen collection of poetry by Seamus Heaney begins with one of his most famous, "Digging." That poem immediately creates a continuity and sense of cohesion with the title of this volume, OPENED GROUND. The initial poem sees the speaker--presumably Heaney, typically characterized as a very personal, if not confessional, poet--meditating on the hard manual labor done by his father and grandfather:

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog. (3)

Heaney himself also sees himself as a digger, but of a cultural digger, rather than a physical one. The poem concludes:

But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it. (4)

Heaney's "Digging" is probably his most anthologized poem, and for good reason: it many ways it encapsulates his approach and philosophy toward poetry, or art in general. There is a sense in his verse that Heaney approaches his poetry as a process of excavation; language as a means of uncovering--rather than creating--identity, both personal and cultural/national. Personal and group identities can be found in the subconscious--individual for the former, collective for the latter--and it is through literature and language that we unearth, understand, and often recover those identities.

Heaney's interest in "digging" up identity can hardly be discussed without reference to the Irish identity and "the Troubles." But, first, a slight detour: I would like to point out the personal nature of Heaney's work, and his interest in individual identity, before touching on his national concerns. Clearly, Heaney's work can be deeply and intensely personal: the best example is perhaps "Mid-Term Break," describing his return home for the funeral of a four-year brother. Returning to "Digging," one of its characteristics that has always struck me is the personal attachment Heaney seems to feel towards his father and grandfather's trade. There is a sense that it goes beyond admiration: Heaney sees this type of work--unearthing--as part of his own lineage and identity. The amount of descriptive attention and detail given to their manual work, compared to his form of digging, also suggests a sense of guilt over his methodology. Yes, he is "digging" metaphorically--but he'd rather be doing so literally.

These veneration for the working class and "common man" seems to run throughout much of Heaney's poetry. I've read "The Forge" multiple times and--try as I might--I don't see much more to the poem than an ode to a blacksmith. Of coures, to quote a famous episode of SEINFELD, "not that there's anything wrong with that." My point is rather simply: Heaney holds a great deal of respect for physical laborers, and that admiration manifests itself in his poetry. However, it is more than just respect or veneration. The world of the peat shoveller or blacksmith is the world with which Heaney personally identifies. Heaney brings poetry into the hands of the workers: rather than a form used by intellectuals and the elite for grand meditations, it is a craft--a trade, a tool--used to work, build, uncover, and refine.

Of course, such a position regarding poetry and personal identity must have implications toward the collective, and Heaney is no stranger to issues of national identity. Many of Heaney's most interesting poems to deal with the national and cultural identity of the Irish come in the form of his "bog poems." Preserved bodies and other archeological finds have often been found buried deep within the bogs, making it an apt metaphor for uncovering and mythologizing a collective Irish identity and experience.

Another of Heaney's famous poems, "Punishment," uses the bog to unify Irish experiences over time in an attempt to reconcile conflicts within the nationalist Irish identity. In the first nine stanzas of the poem, Heaney describes the partially preserved body of a woman dragged from the bog. Heaney presumes that the woman--who had been weighed down and blindfolded--was abused and executed as punishment for adultery. Yet, as he feels great sympathy for the woman he deems a "scapegoat," he realizes his own hypocrisy when considering contemporary Irish women who have affairs with British soldiers:

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,

who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge. (113)

Here we have the internal conflict that still affects so many modern Irish (and other peoples as well): how does one preserve decency and avoid cruelty, while at the same time protect cultural traditions and identity? Heaney has no interest in punishing Irish women, but is deeply attuned to the impulse that does so when they violate codes that are designed to protect the clan. Heaney doesn't necessarily solve the problem, but he does bring it to the fore, and exposes the conflict--and the need to reconcile it--as a defining feature of the collective Irish identity and experience. Again, this excavation is Heaney's way of fulfilling his role as a workman--by unearthing and digging out the ore of identity, both personal and national, he is making it available and ready to be refined.