Hughes, Ted

(1930-1998)

   Born at Mytholmyroyd, West Yorkshire, the son of a carpenter, he was educated at Mexborough Grammar school and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He met Sylvia Plath there and they married in 1956. Plath committed suicide in 1963, as did Hughes' lover, Assia Wevill, in 1969. Hughes was married to Carol Orchard from 1970 until he died. From 1965 he was co-editor of the magazine Modern Poetry in Translation in London. Altogether he published fourteen volumes of poetry (the first being The Hawk in the Rain in 1957), prose, children's books and several anthologies. His Remains of Elmet (1979) gives an insight into his childhood. He was made poet laureate in 1984. The Birthday Letters (1998) was an homage and, in some ways, an explanation of his marriage to Plath. The couple lived latterly in Devon where he died, and his ashes were scattered on Dartmoor, close to the source of the River Taw. Some of his poems: "And the Phoenix Has Come," "Astrological Conundrums," "Bayonet Charge," "Hawk Roosting," "Prometheus on His Crag," "Scapegoats and Rabies," "Seven Dungeon Songs," "Skylarks," "St. Matthew," "The Dogs Are Eating Your Mother."

   Sources: Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Funeral service for Ted Hughes (http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/hughes.htm). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). New Selected Poems 19571994 of Ted Hughes. Faber and Faber, 1995. Selected Poems 1957-1981 of Ted Hughes. Faber and Faber, 1982. The Antaeus Antholog y. Daniel Halpern, ed. Bantam Books, 1986. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).