In native American culture in particular, the Crow was seen as the eternal trickster, even a figure of malice in the forms of the Universe. In this pivitol collection, Hughes appropriates the Crow's mythic role and uses it as a mocking narrator to journey the horrors of the Twentieth Century, including the repressive events of Eastern Europe and the violent incursion of technology and post industrialisation into nature's den. There is a sadism in these poems, that initially arrests the reader, b...

Crow was first published in 1970 and is considered a classic. I wanted to read it because I’d heard it was dark and violent. It also has very good ratings on Goodreads.I guess I’m a black sheep because I kinda hated this book. The collection is about a mythological crow that causes destruction in the human world. The poems blend myth, religion, nature, and imagination. I like the strong imagery and the accessibility of the collection. The poems are pretty easy to understand. I really struggled w...

TimelineSuicide of Ted Hughes’s wife Sylvia Plath, 1963Suicide of Ted Hughes’ current partner Assia Wevill, 1969Publication of Crow, 1970This is the context for the screeching brutality, ugliness and relentless howling nastiness of Crow and its picture of humanity as the scraping of nails on the blackboard of creation and consciousness as worse than anthrax. Crow is really severe stuff.Crow is horror poetry.When Crow cried his mother’s ear Scorched to a stump.In the poems, Crow is many things –

Hey Crow, With all your self-obsessed aloofness,your lack of empathy and whimsy,you're a misrepresentation of all crows. Yours,Pigeon Ah, well, it was only a matter of time before I crossed paths with Ted Hughes' work. Let's just say that just because something is clever, and Hughes' work is CLEVER, it doesn't mean it captures my heart? That is not its aim. Imagination? Definitely not. Interest? No, not that either. Well, maybe with one exception:Crow’s Account of the BattleThe cartridges were

144th book of 2020.Crow reeks of English countryside—gnarled yew trees, mudtracks, woodsmoke, old forgotten chapels in the woods, tired paths, sleepy hills and heavy fog. It is mythical, supernatural, religious. It is both terrifying and funny: bloody and vicious and comical; it is unpleasant and thorny. And as we trip through the Crow’s strange world, of Gods and myth, blood and guts, we are dizzied. Or as the blurb states, "The hero of Ted Hughes' Crow is a creature of mythic proportions. Fero...

This collection. What can I say? It's beautiful, and one that I really want to re-read very soon, because I feel like each reading will bring me a brand new experience.I'd never read any of Ted Hughes poetry before, and frankly I have fallen in love. Never have I experienced such a dark, gritty collection. The poems in this collection for the most part follow the character of Crow, who is grotesque, horrific, yet not unfeeling at certain points. There was a lot of very dark humour in this collec...

I decided to give this book a "re-read" after many years. I always felt that of solitary books of poetry, it is one of the greatest published in the 20th century. If you look at it even through the prism of the 21st century, it seems as prophetic for now as it was a commentary on the past century.It did not take me long to read the book. It is an interesting "statement" if you will, and a unique book of poetry. I've not read a collection like it before. There are about five or six poems that are...

Ted Hughes... after studying some poetry from his collection Birthday Letters and more about his background, I'm not a fan of him as a person. Yet when it comes to sitting down and reading his poems, I'm drawn to them. They are dark, deep, disturbing, cruel... the list goes on. Crow is a short collection, but I had to take my time due to the content. Don't read this one before bedtime, it can get a little gory!

Let me begin by saying I am not a reader of poetry. In fact, I am struggling to remember ever before reading a whole book of poems. I think the closest I have come is poetry studied as part of an English Literature 'O Level' several decades ago.With my inexperience in mind, Crow might not be the best place to start. Perhaps Pam Ayres would be better for a novice?I can't claim that I understood this. But I do know that I felt its power. I certainly can't claim that my life has taken me anywhere n...

In all honesty, this was just okay for me. I'm sure it's worthy of a 5 star rating, as it feels like a masterpiece of poetry. Unfortunately most of it went over my head.

Publisher's Note--Two Legends--Lineage--Examination at the Womb-door--A Kill--Crow and Mama--The Door--A Childish Prank--Crow's First Lesson--Crow Alights--That Moment--Crow Hears Fate Knock on the Door--Crow Tyrannosaurus--Crow's Account of the Battle--The Black Beast--A Grin--Crow Communes--Crow's Account of St George--A Disaster--The Battle of Osfrontalis--Crow's Theology--Crow's Fall--Crow and the Birds--Criminal Ballad--Crow on the Beach--The Contender--Oedipus Crow--Crow's Vanity--A Horrib...

One of those "classics" I'd not yet gotten around to reading, this is an amazingly dark and intense book, full of surreal and haunting imagery, but not without wry humor. It contains real horror and real emotion, and is mostly spoken in the voice of "Crow", who feels like a cross between a dark/negative Holy Ghost and a primal energy of the death that resides in all life -- not God, but a god, one who's ultimately a reflection of all that is egotistical, ugly, unconscious, on the edge of san

Ted Hughes’ The Crow was a mixed bag for me. Some poems went right over my head no matter how many times I would read them. Others read like pretentious claptrap. But then there were a handful that I enjoyed reading, like “Crow Goes Hunting”:CrowDecided to try words.He imagined some words for the job, a lovely pack – Clear-eyed, resounding, well-trained,With strong teeth.You could not find a better bred lot.He pointed out the hare and away went the wordsResounding.Crow was Crow without fail, but...

February 17thA lamb could not get born. Ice windOut of a downpour dishclout sunrise. The motherLay on the muddied slope. Harried, she got upAnd the blackish lump bobbed at her back-endUnder her tail. After some hard galloping,Some manoeuvering, much flapping of the backwardLump head of the lamb looking out,I caught her with a rope. Laid her, head uphillAnd examined the lamb. A blood-ball swollenTight in its black felt, its mouth gapSquashed crooked, tongue stuck out, black-purple,Strangled by it...

I rarely read poetry, but I enjoyed this strange little book by Ted Hughes. It's full of dark imagery, violence and unexpected humour. The poems read like myths of the origins of the world, except that at the middle of them all is Crow, this anarchic, chaotic, ugly, violent figure, playing tricks on God and turning creation upside-down.I was reminded of the Anansi figure in West Indian Folk Tales, himself of course of West African origin. I suspect Hughes drew on a lot of mythological sources in...

the finest cycle of poetry I've ever read - warm, meaty, harsh and cawing likes it's title suggests. Bullets wouldn't cut through this fleshy example of what one could do with verse, just don't forget to turn the gas off...

A Top Shelf review, originally published in The MonitorDark, Tragic VerseFifty years ago, poet Sylvia Plath killed herself by sealing the kitchen off from her two sleeping children, switching on the gas and sticking her head in the oven. She had separated from her husband, the poet Ted Hughes, seven months earlier when she learned he was having an affair. Hughes called her suicide “the end of [his] life,” but that darkness was compounded further when Assia Wevill, his lover, killed herself and t...

The book has been dedicated to the memory of Assia Wevill and her child Shura. I think Assia Wevill was really a challenging dramatic figure we can't ignore. The book starts with a poem called "Two Legends" I suppose these two legends are the legends of Sylvia Plath and Assia Wevill. The second legend is much darker and more tragic. A woman who commits suicide seven years after Plath's death and kills her child not to leave a trace. I think she was charming and impressive who caused the loss of

A reread.All the poems in Crow are in a stark, bold typescript that flies off the page at you and suit the thunderous poetry about the wild trickster of existence written by a poet who himself had godlike looks and talent. Hughes's language is incantatory, aggressive, and riveting. The language struts like you'd expect Crow to strut after having scared the dawn away or found some deliciously foul meal. I've read this several times. In the same way I do with Eliot, I have to occasionally touch ba...

When the pistol muzzle oozing blue vapourWas lifted awayLike a cigarette lifted from an ashtrayAnd the only face left in the worldLay brokenBetween hands that relaxed, being too lateAnd the trees closed foreverAnd the streets closed foreverAnd the body lay on the gravelOf the abandoned worldAmong abandoned utilitiesExposed to infinity foreverCrow had to start searching for something to eat.