Hi Gary, Grasshopper, Ann, Barbara, Colin, Arthur, Sue & Sally,
Thank you all for all your comments!
I hope this won’t get to be a too long reply. I sometimes think individual
replies are better, but then I think they can clog up in-boxes. Anyway…
I wrote the piece about a week after Ted Hughes died, picking phrases and
facts from the Obits that appeared in, I think, The Times and The
Independent. So, the two place names that caused some problems... I guess I
thought, because I rather liked the way his accent drawled out his words
with Yorkshire’s flattish vowels – and how I love returning to that accent
myself – I'd include both! But I accept I don't mention anywhere else -so
I'm just going on the sound. “Meckssss-bu-rurrrr,” “Mie-thummm-royyyydd” –
wonderful to say slowly! (I wonder what I’d do if I came across, say, a poem
from the US that included two place names with what, for me, were tricky
pronunciations?). (Would you believe I read these alongside someone from
Michegan, who didn't stumble too much with the names!
I guess I’m conscious that the poem’s trying to go through the whole of his
life and, even though, I don’t mention everywhere I guess I’m trying to
refer to places or things that seem to figure in some of the poems from a
fair few years of being published. The Obits. too, were selective!
I guess, as well, I felt like you Ann, that the poetry wars between Plath
and Hughes often got very impassioned and neither were part of what was
going on – Sylvia because she was dead and Ted because he wanted to protect
their children. I sort of felt I wanted something calmer, less rhetorical,
than much that had been slung around before he died. I also felt, as you
were connecting to the poem Barbara, which someone riddled with cancer ought
to be shown some compassion and some kind of dignity ought to be possible
even with the privacy of having a bath for the last time. I tried to show it
wasn’t.
So, Colin, should I write about something that might hurt or offend the
relatives? I feel I’m prepared to take the risk I have. I guess, though and
as you said, it could be anyone’s uncle; I don’t mind it being anyone’s
uncle. But is it that I was being cautious by changing his name round,
calling him Huge Ted? Maybe. But it seems a good name to call him by! (“But
you’re honour, this can’t be libel! This is somebody else called Ted who was
even more huge than Ted Hughes!!”)
You mention that it might have hints of a longer narrative Sally? I don’t
think it has. I have one or two poems about poets that all seem to adopt a
similar, not quite reverent, voice. I sort of see it alongside them.
However, I’ll bear what you’ve said in mind! It won’t be the first time a
prior poem resurfaced to become part of something else! Your comment is the
kind of one that sticks, and could be so useful in the future!
And thanks, grasshopper, for your suggestions about the words I use. As I
said (and this is a bad excuse) it’s old and I posted it without really
looking through it again! I’m weighing what you’ve written seriously and
recognising that I’m perhaps too aware of my sources and not as aware of the
person I’m writing about as I could be. The contrast between him still able
to catch a salmon – and yet so passively remembering hearing a football
match of years ago needs some work! (And the “who’s” and “whose” is
terrible of me”!) My thanks for pointing these things out. (Some
grammar-brain-cells seem to have died over the years).
But I don’t know either, Arthur, where he’s buried. It might be that his
grave is somewhere near where he lived in Devon. It might be that it was
thought a grave in Hepstonstall could become a target for those who don’t
believe poetry wars can have cease-fires.
Bob
>From: Bob Cooper <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Huge Ted's Last Morning
>Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2003 17:29:09 +0000
>
>OK this isn't one that's just been written. But I've just had a shower and
>remembered I'd got it somewhere between the lather and the rinse. It's an
>occasional piece, written a week after the guy died, but it's not really
>had an airing since... and I only remembered it because of grasshopper's
>bee poem! I guess, as with all occsional pieces, they can sometimes feel
>like yesterday's bread. But, whaddya think...
>Oh, and there's a four-letter-word near the end! So, if you need to be, be
>warned...
>For C&C:
>
>Huge Ted’s Last Morning
>
>Say it anyway you want, he was abundantly private
>even as a kid in the tobacconists in Mexborough
>or re-walking through leaves above Mytholmroyd.
>Whatever else he did he’s still the night-watchman,
>the bee-keeper, the rose-gardener they’d known; a farmer
>who’s now thin fingers you can hardly believe
>yanked out a dead lamb, who’s ears still seem to hear
>footballers in the Pennine rain, their violent words.
>And the last salmon he caught’s still in the fridge,
>its oil and pink weight collapsing in on itself
>until all that remains is the language he gave us,
>the books we’ll re-open, and the deep-vowelled
>fuck, said with the nakedness of an old man
>lifted from the bath for the last time.
>
>Bob Cooper
>
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