***** A good read.
Hughes was never to be free of Sylvia Plath. His tragic history did not end with her suicide.
When Sylvia discovered his affair with Assia Wevill she ordered Hughes out of their home.
Assia was very beautiful, sophisticated and poised but like Sylvia fragmented and vulnerable.
Sylvia hung above them like a ghost.Hughes said we tried to escape the shadow,live as if we started anew but he never seemed to be able to free himself of Sylvia's memory.
Assia Wevill
We didn't find her - she found us
She sat there in her
soot -wet mascara
In flame orange silks ,in gold bracelets
slightly filthy with exotic mystery
A German Russian Israeli
with the gaze of a demon
Between curtains of black Mongolian hair
Ted Hughes Birthday Letters
Needless to say Assia's friends were not impressed with this description and the feminist movement was strongly opposed to Ted Hughes as well and blamed him indirectly for the deaths of both these women.
Ted in a letter to his brother suggested that women he lived with caught the darkness from him without similar resources to deal with it.
Hughes was reluctant to marry Assia, who was now his common law wife. She also killed herself, along with her daughter Shura, six years after Sylvia Plath's suicide.
as a reader
of this saga
on the outside
looking in
i found their lives
unenviable
interesting but thin
most of it
felt like winter
not a rainbow hue in sight
maybe
it was the biographer
a lot of them can't write
cannot say
i like these folk
genius
though they be
better to be unknown at home
with a nice hot cuppa tea
settle for a cuddly cat
not the A list literary crowd
bitching switching so it goes
they'll always bring you down
Some people just seems destined to mess thing up - not, I hasten to add, that I believe in predestination! - but they do.
ReplyDeleteNow that was quite some story...did nt know this before...thank you for writing this :)
ReplyDeleteExcellent write ❤
ReplyDeletei agree with the last stanza...
ReplyDeleteEgos can get so enlarged that reason has no part of relationships as each were little suns revolving in their own galaxy. You don't have to like to author/poet just because you like their writing.
ReplyDeleteI know who I like through their writing. It is what draws me to them.Writing reveals the personality of a person...whether they are phoney,obsequious compassionate,charming,passionate, bitter, honest etc...I think writing mirrors the writer to a descerning reader.
DeleteI have not heard the quote to his brother before - powerful and yet self absorbed..as they all were perhaps. Freda is the lone survivor and in my opinion perhaps the strongest. Working on her art..maybe even sipping tea and cuddling her cat.. art is magical, powerful and at times dark - i doubt it's ever worth dying for though - thank you for that thought this morning
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting story. Your own lines about staying away from all this, at home with tea, are wonderful.
ReplyDeleteTortured lives, such a great shame.
ReplyDeleteWhat tragic lives they lived. I am not a fan of Hughes, needless to say. An interesting post, Rall.
ReplyDeleteI too would rather be alive and cosy with my cat and a cuppa! I am a great admirer of Plath's writing, and some of his, but I wouldn't swap with either. His poem, which I was unfamiliar with, is a vivid and horrifying depiction of a destructive, obsessive relationship. If he was to blame for Plath's death – personally I think that's an over-simplification – he did his best to atone later. It's thanks to him that we have her amazing work so extensively published. Ah well, making great art is a good thing to do – but even better is to live a full and loving life.
ReplyDeleteYes,that was the point I was trying to make. It is a truly brilliant poem in its depiction of that kind of relationship. I do not like poetry being read out aloud usually, but this reading by Hughes is extraordinary.Thank you for this comment and to everyone else as well.
Delete