An episode from 2/7/24: Tonight, I read six poems from Ted Hughes’s 1983 collection, River. His books Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River contain his best poetry, and they are models for any artist in how handle nature, animal life, myth, and autobiography in their work. The poems that I read from River are:
- October Salmon (the audio of Hughes reading the poem comes from here)
- Four March Watercolours
- Salmon Eggs
- An August Salmon
- The River
- In the Dark Violin of the Valley
This is a revision and complete re-recording of an episode first posted in September of 2021, which included only three poems. I’ve used the opportunity to also read from Jonathan Bates’s biography of Hughes, Hughes’s later notes to the book, as well as handful of letters he wrote about the collection.
You can support Human Voices Wake Us here, or by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I’ve also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series.
Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
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