Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Spellbound

I'm not exactly sympathetic to Ted Hughes when he's at his most mythological, much preferring the concrete stuff (Crow excepted - though I think he's often pretty concrete there.) So having arrived at Prometheus on his Crag in the great read-through of the mighty Collected I wasn't expecting to enjoy the sequence. It also left me cold when I first read it in Moortown on the initial publication of that very mixed bag, in contrast to my utter gleeful absorption in the actual Moortown sequence. And the fact I was reading the Prometheus poems late at night when feeling extremely tired also did not augur well.

In the event, stretching over three days for the 21 rather short poems, I was completely beguiled by the sequence. Harsh, cold, remote and quite brilliant. Not sure why I found myself so receptive this time round, but not interested in questioning the magic involved. Now going to reread to repeat the spell.

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