Ted and Sylvia

Edward James Hughes (August 17th, 1930 - October 28th, 1998) is the English poet and children's writer known as Ted Hughes.

Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. He was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.


Ted Hughes was married from 1956 to 1963 to the American poet Sylvia Plath, who committed suicide in 1963 at the age of 30. His part in the relationship became controversial, particularly to some feminists and American admirers of Plath.

Hughes himself never publicly entered the debate, but his last poetic work – "Birthday Letters", 1998 – explored their complex relationship, and to many, put him in a significantly better light.

Hughes studied English, anthropology and archaeology at Pembroke College, Cambridge. At a party to launch the poetry magazine "St. Botolph's Review" he met Sylvia Plath, and they married just four months thereafter.

The couple moved to the United States, settling in western Massachusetts. After spending time in Boston, they returned to England. They had two children, but separated in the autumn of 1962. Ted continued to live at Court Green, Devon, on and off, with Assia Wevill, after Plath's death on February 11th, 1963.

As Plath's widower, Hughes became the executor of her personal and literary estates. He oversaw the publication of her manuscripts, including "Ariel" in 1966. He also claims to have destroyed the final volume of Plath's journal, detailing their last few months together. In his foreword to "The Journals of Sylvia Plath", he defends his action as a consideration for the couple's young children.

Ted Hughes continued to live at the house in Devon until his death by heart attack on October 28th, 1998, while undergoing treatment for colon cancer.

He received the Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth II just before his death.

In 2003 he was portrayed by British actor Daniel Craig in Sylvia, a biographical film of Sylvia Plath, portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow.

Wikipedia (abridged and adapted)


Lovesong

He loved her and she loved him.
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Off that moment's brink and into nothing
Or everlasting or whatever there was

Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His words were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assassin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
Her vows put his eyes in formalin
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall

Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face.

Ted Hughes

RIC