Book description
Crow was Ted Hughes's fourth book of poems for adults and a pivotal
moment in his writing career. In it, he found both a structure and a
persona that gave his vision a new power and coherence. A. Alvarez
wrote in the Observer, 'Each fresh encounter with despair becomes the
occasion for a separate, almost funny, story in which natural forces
and creatures, mythic figures, even parts of the body, act out their
special roles, each endowed with its own irrepressible life. With
Crow, Hughes joins the select band of survivor-poets whose work is
adequate to the destructive reality we inhabit'.
Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was born in Yorkshire. His first book, The
Hawk in the Rain, was published in 1957 by Faber and Faber and was
followed by many volumes of poetry and prose for adults and children. He
received the Whitbread Book of the Year for two consecutive years for
his last published collections of poetry, Tales from Ovid (1997) and
Birthday Letters (1998). He was Poet Laureate from 1984, and in 1998 he
was appointed to the Order of Merit.
