Short poems by ted hughes

Ted Hughes (1930-1998) is a brooding presence in the landscape of 20th Century poetry, not unlike the six hundred feet-high Scout Rock which overshadowed his Yorkshire childhood.

Hughes’ early experience of the moors and his industrially-scarred surroundings were the keynotes of his later poetic imagination: an unflinching observation of the natural world and the shaping, often damaging, presence of man.

Short poems by ted hughes

Also important in moulding his sensibility was the strong dissenting tradition of this part of the world which would later feed into Hughes’ critique of the utilitarian rationalism of Western culture. Hughes grew up in Mexborough, a coal-mining town, and in 1948 won an Open Exhibition to Cambridge University.

He began by studying English, but switched to anthropology: his encounter with the poetry and folklore of primitive societies would also be an important influence. Whilst at Cambridge Hughes met the talented but already emotionally vulnerable American po