Birthday Letters -- Ted Hughes...

This post is not designed to be an in-depth review nor an expose for anyone studying them in Module C of Advanced English for the 2010 HSC. Rather, just a short note to note that I have enjoyed reading them. I really should get back into the habit of reading much more poetry. I used to read poetry almost every day but a masters degree has certainly put a dent in the time that I used to spend reading for pleasure. Oh well.

Ted Hughes was married to Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath committed suicide. The Birthday Letters apparently is a collection of poems that Hughes wrote on Plath's birthday every year after her death. There are 88 poems in the collection. As a collection, it is an interesting look at the Hughes / Plath marriage and relationship. It is without a doubt Hughes' take on that relationship, which leaves many feeling unfulfilled if they were looking for some kind of cathartic moment where Hughes purges his soul, admits some wrong doing or contributing to the early death by suicide of Plath.

I think my favourite was Fulbright Scholars. It is simple in the sense of being simply deceptive. Any one who reads it with any prior knowledge of the Hughes and Plath relationship and marriage will read so much into this poem.

Enjoy!


Fulbright Scholars
Where was it, in the Strand? A display
Of news items, in photographs.
For some reason I noticed it.
A picture of that year's intake
Of Fulbright Scholars. Just arriving -
Or arrived.  Or some of them.
Were you among them?  I studied it.
Not too minutely, wondering
Which of them I might meet.
I remember that thought.  Not
Your face.  No doubt I scanned particularly
The girls.  Maybe I noticed you.
Maybe I weighed you up, feeling unlikely.
Noted your long hair, loose waves -
Your Veronica Lake bang.  Not what it hid.
It would appear blond. And your grin.
Your exaggerated American
Grin for the cameras, the judges, the strangers, the frighteners.
Then I forgot.  Yet I remember
The picture : the Fulbright Scholars.
With their luggage?  It seems unlikely.
Could they have come as a team? That's as I remember.
From a stall near Charing Cross Station.
It was the first fresh peach I had ever tasted.
I could hardly believe how delicious.
At twenty-five I was dumbfounded afresh
By my ignorance of the simplest things.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion...

I like the poetry of Dylan Thomas. Maybe it is simply because the poetry is good, or it might be because of a shared Welsh heritage, or it could be something that I am yet to realise. However, there was some discussion before Will was born about names that he might be given before we decided on Will. Among these was Dylan.

Anyways, I have been going through all my books in order to sort them out into some kind of order in readiness for packing them into specifically labelled boxes so that I can find them again. Whilst on this mission I came across some Dylan Thomas poetry, including one of my favourites; "And Death Shall Have No Dominion".

The beauty of poetry is that a poem is really anything anyone cares to label as such. There is, obviously, good poetry and not-so-good poetry, but it is all poetry at the end of the day. I am not going to analyse this poem for you. Rather, I would encourage you to read it, and bring to it your own life experiences and views. My biggest enjoyment in reading poetry is imagining that the poet was writing this poem for you to read and interpret it as you will.

This poem has even been interpreted as being a commentary on the inevitable socialist underpinnings of our existence.

So, it is within this framework that I post "And Death Shall Have No Dominion".

Enjoy...


And death shall have no dominion. 
Dead men naked they shall be one 
With the man in the wind and the west moon; 
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, 
They shall have stars at elbow and foot; 
Though they go mad they shall be sane, 
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; 
Though lovers be lost love shall not; 
And death shall have no dominion. 


And death shall have no dominion. 
Under the windings of the sea 
They lying long shall not die windily; 
Twisting on racks when sinews give way, 
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break; 
Faith in their hands shall snap in two, 
And the unicorn evils run them through; 
Split all ends up they shan't crack; 
And death shall have no dominion. 


And death shall have no dominion. 
No more may gulls cry at their ears 
Or waves break loud on the seashores; 
Where blew a flower may a flower no more 
Lift its head to the blows of the rain; 
Though they be mad and dead as nails, 
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies; 
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down, 
And death shall have no dominion.

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

I read a lot of poetry in preference to books, may be because it is quicker and I am just lazy, then again it is really because I just enjoy poetry!

Robert Frost is one of my favourite poets and 'The Road Not Taken' is one of my favourite poems. So, here it is...I hope it does something for you as it has for me!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.