Of interest?

Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
 http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ann Skea" <[log in to unmask]>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2005 9:17 AM
Subject: REVIEW: Ted Hughes: Collected Poems for Children


> TITLE: Ted Hughes: Collected Poems for Children
> AUTHOR: Ted Hughes
> ILLUSTRATOR: Raymond Briggs
> PUBLISHER: Faber and Faber ( October 2005)
> ISBN: 0 571 21501 7 PRICE: £16.99 (hardback) 259 pages
>
> Reviewed by Ann Skea ([log in to unmask]).
> **************************************** ********
> Ted Hughes was for several years one of the judges of the poetry which was
> submitted by children to the Daily Mirror's Children's Literary
> Competition. He
> read thousands of entries and, in the process, he became very aware of the
> differences between a child's approach to poetry and that of an adult. He
> learned, he said, that "children's sensibility and children's writing,
> have
> much to teach adults". He learned that their world "is not just a
> miniature
> world of naive novelties and limited reality" but a world where there is
> still
> much to be explored. And he learned that children explore the world with
> curiosity, perception, a readiness to change and "a no-holds-barred
> approach to
> problems" which adults, mostly, have lost.
>
> So, in the poetry which Hughes wrote for children he never condescended to
> them
> or treated them as miniature adults. He never undervalued their ability to
> understand anything which was presented to them in their own terms. He
> tried,
> as he said, to write poetry which would appeal to the child's heart and
> mind,
> open up the imagination, and keep the creative abilities fluid and alive.
> And
> he tried to write in language which was not childish, yet was "within the
> hearing of children".
>
> The sheer variety and number of poems in Ted Hughes: The Collected Poems
> for
> Children show just how important Hughes considered writing poetry for
> children
> to be. And the range of ages to which these poems are intended to appeal
> is
> equally broad. He once wrote that "It may well be, as the Chinese Sages
> declare, that a man in whom the child's heart and mind has died is no
> better
> than a dead man". So, these poems should appeal to the child in all of us,
> which is always good news for those of us who read to children.
>
> Collected in this new book are almost all the poems which have been
> previously
> published in Hughes's volumes of poetry for children.
>
> There are the simple, amusing poems from The Cat and the Cuckoo and The
> Mermaid's Purse; the more serious, beautifully evocative pictures of
> animals
> from Under the North Star; and the diverse views of animals expressed by
> the
> teacher, the farmer, the poacher, the vicar and the children from What Is
> The
> Truth. Sadly, the framing story of What Is The Truth is not included. Nor
> are
> the poems about that wonderful character Ffangs, the Vampire Bat. But
> Nessie is
> there; and so, too, are those weird relatives from My Family and Other
> Animals,
> including the grandma who knits woolly suits for goldfish, and the sister
> who
> is a crow.
>
> Other poems which are included are those from Season Songs, and the whole
> range
> of Moon poems, some of which originally appeared in the limited edition
> Earth
> Moon, published by Olwyn Hughes's Rainbow Press and illustrated by Hughes
> himself **.
>
> The book is arranged roughly according to the age group to which
> particular
> sequences of poems are likely to appeal, ranging from four-year-olds
> upwards.
> And Raymond Briggs's illustrations are more abundant in the earlier part
> of the
> book where the youngest children are likely to be most entertained. Yet
> because
> of Hughes's own attitude to children's poetry, this arrangement is rather
> arbitrary. Seven-year-olds for instance, are as likely to enjoy the poem
> about
> the Aunt-eating thistle at the front of the book, as they are to be
> intrigued
> by the rhythms and the seasonal changes of 'There Come Days', which is
> near the
> back. Just as older children will understand and feel sorry for the hunted
> creature in 'The Stag', and will also be amused by that curious beast
> which is
> "not an elephant or any such grasshopper" but Nessie, "the Monster of the
> Loch".
>
> Many of these poems are very English in their seasons and in their
> reference to
> specific locations, which makes them less accessible to children from,
> say,
> Australia. But there are Black Bears, Elk and Loons too, which don't
> normally
> inhabit the English countryside. And other creatures, like the fearsome
> Wolverine and the Moon-Hyena, which can only be found in myth and
> imagination.
>
> There are some dated references, too. Not many children, or even their
> parents,
> will know anything about "Lord Fauntleroy", who is mentioned in 'A March
> Calf'.
> Yet the vivid picture of the new-born calf which Hughes creates in the
> poem is
> none the worse for that.
>
> Raymond Briggs's black and white drawings are appealing and informative
> for
> children but sometimes rather too literal for adults and, very
> occasionally,
> (as in the illustration for 'The Loon', which is a species of diving bird)
> completely misleading. But the drawings are interesting, and often
> amusing, and
> are there in abundance, which that makes this thick book something that a
> child
> might browse through even before they can read.
>
> For parents and teachers and anyone who enjoys reading poetry to children
> and
> seeing them respond to the imaginative power of poems, this book is an
> invaluable resource which, like other classics of children's literature,
> will
> remain a favourite for years. For children (or just for the child in us)
> it is
> a book to treasure.
>
> **
> A number of poems are listed in the Index as "Uncollected". None of these
> is
> previously uncollected. The poem 'Gulls Aloft' , which is listed amongst
> the
> Mermaids Purse poems is, however, an uncollected poem.
>
> ************************************************
> Copyright © Ann Skea 2005
> http://ann.skea.com
> Ted Hughes' Pages http://ann.skea.com/THHome
>