I think it was Milosz, the Polish poet, who when he lay in a doorway and watched the bullets lifting the cobbles out of the street beside him realised that most poetry is not equipped for life in a world… — Ted Hughes Copy Share Image
That's the paradox: the only time most people feel alive is when they're suffering, when something overwhelms their ordinary, careful armour, and the naked child is flung out onto the world. That's why the things that are worst to undergo… — Ted Hughes Copy Share Image
The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or… — Ted Hughes Copy Share Image
The inmost spirit of poetry, in other words, is at bottom, in every recorded case, the voice of pain – and the physical body,… — Ted Hughes Copy Share Image
“I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed. Inaction, no falsifying dream Between my hooked head and hooked feet: Or in… — Ted Hughes Copy Share Image
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel. Over the cage floor the horizons come. — Ted Hughes Copy Share Image
Stilled legendary depth: It was as deep as England. It held Pike too immense to stir, so immense and old That past nightfall I… — Ted Hughes Copy Share Image
As Popa penetrates deeper into his life, with book after book, it begins to look like a Universe passing through a Universe. It is… — Ted Hughes Copy Share Image
“I had let it all grow. I had supposed It was all OK. Your life Was a liner I voyaged in. Costly education had… — Ted Hughes Copy Share Image
He could not stand. It was not That he could not thrive, he was born With everything but the will – That can be… — Ted Hughes Copy Share Image
“If you're all so peaceful up there, how did you get such greedy and cruel ideas?" The dragon was silent for a long time… — Ted Hughes Copy Share Image
