A Ted Hughes Bestiary

Selected Poems

Ted Hughes

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2014
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571301454
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Originally the medieval bestiary or book of animals set out to establish safe distinctions - between them and us - but Hughes's poetry works always in a contrary direction: showing what man and beast have in common, the reservoir from which we all draw. Alice Oswald's selection is arranged chronologically, with an eye to different books and styles, but equally to those poems that embody animals, rather than just describe them. Some poems are here because, although not strictly speaking animal, they become so in the process of writing; and in keeping with the bestiary tradition there are plenty of imaginary animals - all concentratedly coming about their business.

The resulting selection is subtly responsive to a central aspect of Hughes's achievement, while offering room to some wonderful overlooked poems, and to 'those that have the wildest tunes.'

Table of contents

• Cover
• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction
• Four prose excerpts
• The Hawk in the Rain
• The Jaguar
• The Thought-Fox
• The Horses
• Meeting
• February
• Esther’s Tomcat
• Hawk Roosting
• The Bull Moses
• View of a Pig
• An Otter
• Thrushes
• Pike
• Stealing Trout on a May Morning
• The Lake
• Thistles
• Ghost Crabs
• Second Glance at a Jaguar
• Song of a Rat
• Skylarks
• The Howling of Wolves
• Gnat-Psalm
• Wodwo
• That Moment
• Crow and the Birds
• Crow Tyrannosaurus
• Two Legends
• Lineage
• Examination at the Womb-Door
• Crow’s Fall
• Owl’s Song
• Crow’s Elephant Totem Song
• Littleblood
• from Prometheus On His Crag
• Prometheus . . . Began to admire the vulture
• The Lamentable History of the Human Calf
• Swifts
• Mackerel Song
• Work and Play
• A Cranefly in September
• The Stag
• from Gaudete
• A Solstice
• from Orts
• Only a Little Sleep, a Little Slumber
• The Owl Flower
• The Risen
• And the Falcon came
• The Skylark came
• The Wild Duck
• The Swift comes the swift
• The Unknown Wren
• And Owl
• The Dove Came
• The Crow came to Adam
• And the Phoenix has come
• Curlews
• The Weasels We Smoked out of the Bank
• The Canal’s Drowning Black
• The Long Tunnel Ceiling
• Cock-Crows
• Feeding out-wintering cattle at twilight
• Foxhunt
• Roe-deer
• February 17th
• Coming down through Somerset
• While she chews sideways
• Sheep
• The Lovepet
• Mosquito
• Cuckoo
• Swans
• Buzzard
• Snipe
• The Hen
• Mallard
• Evening Thrush
• Treecreeper
• A Dove
• Sing the Rat
• Swallows
• Under the Hill of Centurions
• Milesian Encounter on the Sligachan
• That Morning
• A Rival
• Performance
• An Eel
• October Salmon
• Visitation
• The Hare
• Two Tortoiseshell Butterflies
• In the Likeness of a Grasshopper
• A Sparrow Hawk
• Wolfwatching
• from Arachne
• The Owl
• The Chipmunk
• Epiphany
• from The Boy Changed into a Stag Cries Out at the Gate of Secrets
• The Prophet
• About the Author
• By the Same Author
• Copyright