Popa is one of the most amazing poets I have ever read. I am often skeptical about translations of Slavic poetry into English, but these are truly surpurb. Anne Pennington, the primary translator, worked very closely with Popa until her death in 1981 (in fact, the first poem is a tribute to her). She strove to communicate Popa's unique imagery and themes, not to hold on to rhythms and sounds solely belonging to the original. His poetry is metaphorically very complex, but as he oversaw nearly all of the translations, this volume is as good as you'll get without learning Serbian. I read about half of the 400-odd pages in one sitting. Absolutely wonderful.

...except that Jane Cassady is completely different. Cassady uses Post-modernistic images that evoke Kant, the Confessional Poets and pop music in such a way as to make the outrageous metaphoric leaps and connections herein seem completely logical. There is a literateness to her work that belays the fact that most poets who would dare reference Pretty in Pink and the Cure are basically shallow. Cassady is not. Cassady may well be one of tomorrows poetic greats.

This book should not be out of print. Besides his more recent translations (interpretations) of greek and latin texts and the recent collection "Birthday Letters," this may be Hughes' best work. It was his first volume published, and while volumes to follow, such as "Crow" and "Gaudette," descended into a fabricated landscape, this volume derives it's subject matter powerfully and beautifully from, primarily, the natural world. Hughes' renown as a depictor of the natural world is made evident as deserved here more than any other volume he produced. As the first publised work of a masterful and recently deceased poet, this work should still be in print. Find it if you can.

Ted Hughes has the ability to make the natural world jump at you, alive, off the page. Nowhere is this more evident than in this wonderful cornucopia of sea poems beautifully illustrated by Flora Mcdonnell.

There is literally the zing of sea salt from the moment you open the book. For a person, like myself, who does not live by the sea, it is a tribute to Hughes' power that I felt a whole new world opening in my eyes . This apparent throughout the book, each poem delving deeper and deeper into the mystery of the ocean.

At no time does the book become sentimental. Hughes' characteristic truth when it comes to nature is apparent throughout the book. He treats his subjects with the respect they deserve and in doing so creates a whoolly entertaining yet realistic portrayal of the sea.

A favorite of mine which illustrates this is a short little poem concerning a mussel, in which Hughes likens it to a torn heart. By turns descriptive and playful, he turns it into a beautiful poem concerning a creature of the sea which would not usually garner such poetic attention.

This, as such, is the strength of the book. It has an unerring ability to make the ordinary into something exraordinay ensuring that a walk by the ocean (for children and adults alike) will never be the same again.

I'm a poetry scanner. I pick up poetry books and randomly read the odd line here and there to ascertain whether or not I like the general style of the poet. If I do, I'll usually buy the book. I discovered the genius of Ted Hughes (who I expected to dislike because I'd never liked Sylvia Plath) at a market stall. His work absolutely blew me away. My other favourite poets are ee cummings, TS Eliot and John Milton - I'm not sure if that's relevant, but it might put my tastes a little more into context. Hughes has a remarkable gift for language and dark descriptive insight, disturbing and gorgeous turns of phrase and perfect timing. I keep a self-collated quote book, and excerpts from his poetry are now the most commonly occurring entries. It's always very difficult to describe what makes certain poetry great, so I'll just give some examples of lines I think are magnificent...
"The bright mirror I braved: the devil in it
Loved me like my soul, my soul.
Now that I seek myself in a serpent
My smile is fatal."
(I like it dark, sublime and metaphoric, whether it be poetry, music, art or whatever)
My favourite modern poet, and he died just one year after I discovered he existed. My timing is abysmal. But his poetry is quite the opposite. Immerse...

...Want a break from poetry that is "sophisticated," "domestic" or "Lacanian"? This is it! It's been a favorite of mine for ten years, restorative on every read. It bears the stamp of green, love, a garden of great poems (Keats, Neruda, "Anonymous" etc.) fresh as the day they were written. This vivid new cover sort of sums up the feeling.

In the prefatory poem that begins "Remains of Elmet", Ted Hughes talks about an "Archaeology of the mouth". For Hughes, this "archaeology" describes a process of excavation and rediscovery which is movingly enacted throughout the volume. While this collection is often labelled as "a book of pretty words and pictures" (which it undoubtedly is, when coupled with Fay Goodwin's extraordinary black and white photographs), "Remains of Elmet" also marks a major departure in Hughes' work. Whereas its predecessors, "Crow" and "Cave Birds" (and perhaps most extremely, "Orghast"), mark a period of repression and a fleeing from the familiar natural world which was Hughes' first subject (in "The Hawk in the Rain" and "Lupercal"), "Remains of Elmet" can be seen to mark a re-embracing of the real world (in this case, the moorlands of Hughes' childhood). The "trauma" at the heart of this poetic (and psychological) process is the famous suicide of Hughes' wife, the poet Sylvia Plath, an event for which Hughes has been repeatedly chastised. Just as Crow represents a pathetic man-figure plagued by unshakeable guilt and pain (Hughes for perhaps twenty years after Plath's death), so the angel that inhabits the final few poems of "Remains of Elmet" (a symbolic, luminescent Plath) completes the full circle of repression and recovery, forgetting and remembering, which this volume finally resolves. "Remains of Elmet" is not only an important benchmark in Hughes' oeuvre, but also a book of the most haunting poetry one is ever likely to read. In the poems of landscape and childhood - barren moorlands, decaying monuments, the old and the ancient - Hughes captures the essence of his Yorkshire home and resolves a psychological event that shaped the most productive years of his poetic career.

Ted Hughes has written ten wonderful short stories about the early world, when God meticulously (or not so meticulously) fashioned all the animals out of clay. Each tale is a richly worded adventure, as God, his mother, Man, Woman, and their children live in the early days. Learn how the birds were created, how the Peacock got is wonderful plumage, and what sometimes happens to the leftovers from God's workshop when a tiny bit of thundercloud gets mixed in. The book has great illustrations by A. Davidson, but make no mistake, this is a book to be read to someone, one story at a time. Hughes' language takes listeners on a verbal safari with great nonesense words and sounds. Its a book for all ages, even adults, but I would think that children between 4-6 would love the whimsical logic behind the creation of each animal the most

Erotic, comical, dramatic, shocking, and mystical, this is a fascinating collection of some of Ovid's greatest stories. Adapted for the stage, these ancient stories embody some of the most pressing issues in modern society, while paying homage to their deep roots in classical antiquity. A must-read for the student of classical studies and mythology, and anyone with an imagination or a yen for the fanciful. The characters of Juno, Jupiter, Bacchus and others are brought to life and highlighed with amazing color and depth. This is your chance to acquaint - or refamiliarize yourself - with the ancient world. You will not be disappointed!

I'm as great an admirer of Ted Hughes' poetry as I am of Sylvia Plath's. Indeed, if I had been forced to pick which half of that couple I thought seemed the writer whose work will prove more durable, powerful, apt to become universal by rising through time, it would have been Hughes. Maybe it still is, if I'm allowed to except the most recent book, which reads like journal entries (though not quite as honest) cut up to look like poems.

I have forgiven Hughes his occasionally churlish end-notes in his otherwise excellent edition of Plath's collected poems. I can certainly forgive him for wanting to tell some of the unheard stories of his chilling marriage with Plath before he too succumbed to death. But it pains me to see the poet of CROW and the unsparing, original, steely poems that followed CROW set his name to this third-rate stuff--slack in diction and rhythm, wordy with Britishisms far in excess of what would be needed to create a "conversational" tone, dependent on extrinsic biographical information for what impact they have.

(Yes, I clicked on three stars. Ted Hughes' third rate is better than many publishing poets' first rate.)

I confess that I have always enjoyed Ted Hughes' work more than that of Sylvia Plath; I grieve that his legacy (more so, I think in this country than in the UK) will forever be intertwined with hers. She had a few moments of feverish brilliance ("Ariel" is a fabulous collection, I readily admit), but the sheer quality of Hughes' work will have, I suspect, a more lasting impact in the world of English language poetry.

Hughes, like my favorite American poet Jeffers, is often viewed as remote and inaccessible because his best poetry is about the natural world, rather than about human beings. What Jeffers was to the California coast, Hughes is to beasts everywhere. Time and again, I return to his poems about sheep, or badgers, or trout -- he writes animals like no other poet in English. His best poems in this collection deal once more with animals -- particularly the long, delicate, perfect "59th Bear". I won't quote from it -- I just plead with the reader to ask themselves if this is not the finest description of "bearness" that they have ever read.

Much has been written (some of it by Hughes himself) about how he and Sylvia Plath saw the natural world differently -- she with passionate adolescent sentiment, he with a keener, more nuanced gaze. We can wonder what kind of writer Plath might have blossomed into had she lived and "recovered" from her mental illness -- but there is no doubt that these poems, in this collection, represent Hughes at his most mature and his most insightful.

I have read countless books about the life and works of Sylvia Plath, and in doing so, have attempted to uncover whatever real truths exist about the love affair between Sylvia and Ted. I think this book of gorgeous narrative poems is testimony that often, there is no 'simple answer' or 'person to blame' in a relationship that has failed. It is also testimony to Hughes's undying, colossal love for his former wife, however he may have wrecked it in their youth. It is a beautiful and moving read, particularly if you have read some background material beforehand. All his subtle references take on a much deeper meaning when one knows the details behind them, and the details according to Sylvia. The poetry is lush and shimmers with a sincere, burning love for a troubled woman who left us much too soon.