A Particular Poem

I've always thought of Ted Hughes as an indisputably great poet just based on those poems that are so self-evidently wonderful in their perfection that there's no point in discussion. One example will suffice: Hawk Roosting. Now who's going to argue with that? In truth, he's not always at that level - what poet could be - but it's remarkable just how often across his career he does get there, which is one of the reasons why I was wondering whether a reading of the Collected would lead to my discovery of even more moments of total, mesmerising magic.

It has, and in one case in the least likely place. I thought I was reasonably aware of the special joys of Season Songs as a sequence since I've always thought of it as a bit of a favourite. So how did I come to miss A Cranefly in September? Fortunately I didn't miss it earlier this week and it hypnotised me. I found myself as enmeshed in the poem as the poor cranefly is in the grass-mesh. I say 'poor', but TH deals with her so coolly, so objectively that there isn't a trace of sentimentality in the poem, yet the inevitable fate of the creature becomes deeply, deeply touching as she bravely struggles in her tinily embattled way.

At the heart of the magic worked by the poet here seems to me to be an act of attention being paid. I suspect that the ability to pay such attention, something that perhaps we all of us have even if we rarely practice the art, can lead us to riches when we use it, such acts plugging us in to what matters. We're incredibly lucky, of course, that along with the gift of paying such attention TH had the words to embody that attention in.