Alice Oswald on Ted Hughes, featuring archive readings by Hughes

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Alice Oswald talks about the poetry of Ted Hughes, with help from recordings of his readings at New York's 92nd Street Y, which for nearly 80 years has been a home to the voices of literature, hosting in its famed Reading Series the greatest literary artists of the 20th century and recording for posterity their appearances as part of its vast audio archive.
She is joined by Bernard Schwartz, who produces 92Y's Reading Series as director of its Unterberg Poetry Center.
Recorded at the London Review Bookshop on 7 March 2017.
In collaboration with the 92nd Street Y, New York and Queen Mary University of London.
Read Ted Hughes's poetry in the London Review of Books: lrb.me/tedhughesyt
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[@constancewalsh3646]

Hughes on Shakespeare as "the maternal octopus of literature"; and "home-made emergency kit-bag of panic speeches" - priceless!! Thanks you Ms Oswald for your knowing and intuitive commentary, and thank you, Mr Schwartz, for your erudite and considerate self.

[@achilles1001]

I have been reading Hughes all day today, a rainy cool day in Houston. I found this video, and am grateful. I love Ms. Oswald’s manifest love for Hughes’ writing. Her discussion right before the second reading of “Pibroch” (re: the “nobility” of humans) is especially powerful to me.

[@paulharris8983]

I could listen to Hughe’s speak all day, tremendous.

[@purpledanny1958]

2:14 “The thought-fox”, 14:15 “Pibroch”, 18:19 “Pibroch” [repeat] 20:42 “Littleblood” 27:30 “How water began to play” 37:07 “Racine’s ‘PHEDRE’, translated by Ted Hughes]” (read by Irene Word) 48:53 “An October salmon”

[@patrickkerrigan3633]

What i love about this is the way right at the beginning that Alice Oswald reminds us reading poetry should never be for reading poetry's sake, it is about how words feed into our lives, our pulse and vice-versa

[@darklingeraeld-ridge7946]

Wonderful. Truly I believe Alice Oswald is his heir, along with Robin Robertson, and she should be Poet Laureate.

[@jonharrison9222]

This aged well.

[@purpledanny1958]

Insightful comments by Alice Oswald, with Hughes's own mesmerizing reading.

[@TheBrendacusack]

Thank you for this vivid championing of Ted Hughes, a poet I have resisted for too long. Just a word about Cuchulainn's raven (not a lark). Mortally wounded in battle the hero tied himself to a standing stone and continued to hold off his enemies. After three days Morrigan, Godess of War, disguised as a raven, came and perched on his shoulder. Then they knew he was dead and that it was safe to approach. He died 'with a laugh in his mouth' according to the annals.

[@Andy-lm2zp]

Interesting ! I first read crow's account of the battle (of crow's poems) and I felt I absolutely got it, stunning ! I think of it like an everyman, impartial, unchanging the essence of life observing life without any self awareness, child like bemused, and absolute, reality without human taint of sentimentality

[@paulharvey2396]

God Bless you Alice Oswald for this good work May the Lord prosper you amen

[@happymaskedguy1943]

erm, okay.

[@irishjohn3528]

So wonderful thank you

[@landscapeartist2342]

Love this, a treat to watch during lockdown, wonderful !!

[@audreyardern-jones6693]

Thank you for this: so brilliant and inspiring, just breath taking!

[@markcollyer7080]

Thank you for sharing this. A real treat.

[@freddiemercerful]

Does anyone know where we can get the original of Hughes reading his poems? It's not elswhere on youtube. Thanks!

[@nathancoleman7235]

Ted Hughes(1930-1998)20th century British poet🇬🇧RIP

[@joegiuffrida6779]

What do you think his dream state was suggesting when the Fox says "...you're going to ruin 'Us'"? Curious if anyone has a take on it

[@freddiemerciful9896]

Does anyone know where I can get the original recording of all these poems on audiobook? Say 'How Water Began to Play? Doesn't seem to be on youtube anywhere. Thanks!

[@johnpowys5755]

I don't know where they got the specific readings used in this presentation and would like to know myself. But I have an audio book simply called "Ted Hughes Reading his Poetry" published by HarperCollins (1977) which includes readings of How Water Began to Play, The Thought Fox, Pibroch, Hawk Roosting and 50 other poems. Maybe it is only available 2nd hand, so no idea of price. There is also the double CD "The Spoken Word - Ted Hughes" which mainly includes more obscure poems, Ted reading two short stories, but also poems like Football at Slack.

[@tom_123]

Who’s the nervous suit?

[@jonharrison9222]

Surprising that a poet as tweedy as Alice Oswald likes the original big, booming northerner Ted Hughes. And I don’t hear any difference in the voice of the poem or the man who spoke it. The ‘performing’ tangent is a red herring. Hughes’ meter is that of a Yorkshire accent, hammering down each deep consonant. You can hear the same in Tony Harrison. I suspect this, as much as anything else, was why the young Seamus Heaney liked Hughes so much.

[@mcfabb]

Overthinking is a terrible thing.

[@lizziebkennedy7505]

Dunning Kruger is much worse.

[@bobbybee7403]

13

[@bjpafa2293]

T S Elliot... 🤔🇬🇧🇺🇸 🎭🇪🇺 by himself is the best, in some humble perspective... 🙏 Ted Hugues and his better half 🌗. As being nearby to some Event Horizon and, yet, not be converted in Hawking Radiation, escaping that gravitational hole in consequence of its dissipation. Actually, this is just a sketch of a incipient thought, a nascent dawn.

[@TheShotenZenjin]

I thought “littleblood” was a mosquito.

[@thericicle892]

totally makes sense!

[@philipmcluskey6805]

The myth of Hughes what foods did he eat? Can we wear his clothes? is it true he touched this pen?

[@46metube]

the only rule in poetry is your own.

[@soldtobediers]

How diametrically opposite of how Bob Dylan's explanation-al question to the interviewer's question was answered when asked of him... Where does all of your thoughts to write about come from? Dylan quipped back - Only God knows those things... you'll have to ask Him!

[@lizziebkennedy7505]

The narcissistic replies are not interesting.

[@tonylanfranchi7244]

I fundamentally disagree with Alice Oswald when she talks about how the reading of the poem has nothing to do with how Hughes is reading it. I recently watched a very interesting interview on KZbin with Allie Esiri & Simon Russell Beale on this very topic. Russell Beale was very clear about how some Actors simply don't know how to read a poem & not everyone knows how to do it. It is absolutely everything to do with how some people or Actors have certain qualities in their voices that enables them to read a poem well. I've heard a number of Actors on Poetry Please totally trashing a poem, be it by Hughes or anybody else for that matter. Ted Hughes was a brilliant reader & his voice had fantastic qualities - mesmerizing & haunting. A poem or any kind of prose or written dialogue needs to be 'lifted off the page', and not everyone can do that. Sorry Alice, but I respectfully disagree with you on this.

[@degalan2656]

It’s hard… why would anyone think to have the right description of what writing or poetry is. What things are in general. From the bat it’s nonsensical. Or let’s say this much, it has nothing to do with writing itself, just with the person uttering the words.

[@jamesdavidson2750]

Not one of the two have slipped the Salmon through.Shameless in dungarees & ridiculous in the fire of pinched knowingness.This is so bad it verges on the wrong way of walking through mud.

[@degalan2656]

Im not saying it’s not hard, but we should not red in to poets. For me into any writing. For it speaks of ourselves and not the poet or the poem.

[@JungianHeights]

I’d be inclined to disagree. The poet informs the poem, whether that is from their time period or in Hughes’ case, tumultuous marriage.

[@degalan2656]

@@JungianHeights he only wrote about the marriage in the end… which for me are the weakest poems… salacious… a commentary on all those that thought they knew what their marriage was like… which in itself is preposterous…