All the poems of a great 20th-century poet From the astonishing debut Hawk in the Rain (1957) to Birthday Letters (1998), Ted Hughes was one of postwar literature's truly prodigious poets. This remarkable volume gathers all of his work, from his earliest poems (published only in journals) through the ground-breaking volumes Crow (1970), Gaudete(1977), and Tales from Ovid (1997). It includes poems Hughes composed for fine-press printers, poems he wrote as England's Poet Laureate, and those children's poems that he meant for adults as well. This omnium-gatherum of Hughes's work is animated throughout by a voice that, as Seamus Heaney remarked, was simply "longer and deeper and rougher" than those of his contemporaries.

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Ariel (1965) contains many of Sylvia Plath's best-known poems written in an extraordinary burst of creativity just before her death in 1963, including 'Lady Lazarus', 'Edge', 'Daddy' and 'Paralytic'. The first of four collections to be published by Faber & Faber, Ariel is the volume on which Sylvia Plath's reputation as one of the most original, daring and gifted poets of the twentieth century rests. This beautiful hardback reproduces the classic design of the first edition of a volume now recognised to be one of the most shocking and iconic collections of poetry of the twentieth century. 'If the poems are despairing, vengeful and destructive, they are at the same time tender, open to things, and also unusually clever, sardonic, hardminded . . . They are works of great artistic purity and, despite all the nihilism, great generosity . . . the book is a major literary event.' A. Alvarez in the Observer

Originally published in 1985, this study provides a clear and intelligent introduction to the work of the former Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes. The author presents the main works in a broadly chronological order and brings together the most interesting of Hughes’ own critical remarks from interviews, recordings, letters and articles. Throughout the book West emphasizes the drama and the gestures behind the ‘verbal surface’ of Hughes’ work and at the same time raises questions of value not just for Hughes’ work but for all poetry, such as, what is myth and what is the purpose of poetry? Many well-known poems are used to illustrate his argument and a small number are examined in depth, making this an indispensable guide to Ted Hughes’ work.

A literary figure often overshadowed by his famed wife, Sylvia Plath, and their troubled marriage, Ted Hughes was a brilliant poet in his own right who wrote some of the most important British poetry of the twentieth century. The first in-depth study of Hughes’s personal papers published after his death, The Laughter of Foxes, is here offered in a newly revised second edition. An intimate yet critical survey of Hughes’s work, The Laughter of Foxes is penned by an acclaimed scholar and one of Hughes’ closest friends. Keith Sagar probes all aspects of the poet's life and work, delving into the specifics of his life as revealed by his writings and correspondence. A wide array of topics—including the mythic imagination, the poetic relationship between Plath and Hughes, and a detailed analysis of Hughes’s poem “A Dove Came” through its evolving drafts—reveals fascinating new avenues of literary and biographical analysis in Hughes’s work. Augmenting the rich text in this edition are excerpts of letters from Hughes to Sagar, a detailed chronology of Hughes’s life by Ann Skea, and the first publication of the story "Crow." Sagar also revisits his original introduction in this new edition, expanding it with additional insights into Hughes’s poetry as well as a detailed account of Hughes’s version of Euripedes’ Alcestis. A compelling study that the Daily Telegraph called “invaluable for anyone interested in Hughes’ work,” The Laughter of Foxes unearths the man behind the myth who struggled to transform his imaginative life from pain into hope.

From the UK Poet Laureate and bestselling translator, a spirited book that demystifies and celebrates the art of poetry today In A Vertical Art, acclaimed poet Simon Armitage takes a refreshingly common-sense approach to an art form that can easily lend itself to grand statements and hollow gestures. Questioning both the facile and obscure ends of the poetry spectrum, he offers sparkling new insights about poetry and an array of favorite poets. Based on Armitage’s public lectures as Oxford Professor of Poetry, A Vertical Art illuminates poets as varied as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, Ted Hughes, Thom Gunn, A. R. Ammons, and Claudia Rankine. The chapters are often delightfully sassy in their treatment, as in “Like, Elizabeth Bishop,” in which Armitage dissects—and tallies—the poet’s predilection for similes. He discusses Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize, poetic lists, poetry and the underworld, and the dilemmas of translating Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Armitage also pulls back the curtain on the unromantic realities of making a living as a contemporary poet, and ends the book with his own list of “Ninety-Five Theses” on the principles and practice of poetry. An appealingly personal book that explores the volatile and disputed definitions of poetry from the viewpoint of a practicing writer and dedicated reader, A Vertical Art makes an insightful and entertaining case for the power and potential of poetry today.

This new study of the work of Ted Hughes traces the stages of his development as a poet, from his powerful early collection, The Hawk in the Rain to his last award-winning translations. Hughes is seen as a complex, multi-faceted writer, a great poet in the tradition of English nature poetry, who also sought inspiration from international sources, ancient and modern. His lifelong concern for language and his use of mythology and history are explored, while his poetic achievements are examined in context, together with his writing for children and his experiments with forms of theatre.