dumbfoundry

[...] Over the next 20 years I met him about a dozen times, in some very obscure circumstances and peculiar company. On the last occasion, I listened as he made his last recorded reading, the poems from Tales from Ovid that were taped at his home and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Hughes lowered his head to the microphone, and like the storyteller he truly was, told the whole story, beginning to end, with barely a fluff. Those cassettes are now available to all, but for all their slick packaging and promotion, they have for me the quality of a rare bootleg. Anyone listening carefully will be able to hear not just Hughes's voice at its ghostly, intimate best, but also the sounds of the Devon landscape going on around him. At one point there's a tractor. A little later, church bells. And eventually, right on cue, a crow comes winging its way through the stereo, in one ear and out through the other. It's a compelling testament to the work of a poet whose great exploit was to bring the inner workings of the human brain out into the wide world, and at the same time draw the outside world into the mind.

This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy on Monday, February 20, 2006 at 9:14 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.