Observations placeholder
Hughes, Ted - Crow - Crow decided to try words
Identifier
000121
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Written at the time when his relationship with Sylvia Plath was at its lowest ebb and she committed suicide – see the main description of his life.
The poem is an allegory about all sorts of birds and their symbolic meaning. It also shows the correlation between people and birds – birds as people
This part is a description of a shamanic fight. Ted Hughes seemed of the opinion that the shaman as crow was resistant to the might of the Creator – a challenger of the Creative spirit, defiant to the end even whilst it was being purified by the sun’s fire, it remained defiant. Crow has Will and its own ability to create ……….
A description of the experience
from Crow
Crow decided to try words
He imagined some words for the job, a lovely pack
Clear eyed, resounding, well trained
With strong teeth
You could not find a better bred lot
He pointed out the hare and away went the words
Resounding
Crow was crow without fail, but what is hare?
It converted itself to a concrete bunker
The words circled protesting, resounding
Crow turned the words into bombs – they blasted the bunker
The bits of bunker flew up – a flock of starlings
Crow turned the words into shotguns, they shot down the starlings
The falling starlings turned to a cloud burst
Crow turned the words into a reservoir, collecting the water
The water turned into an earthquake, swallowing the reservoir
The earthquake turned into a hare and leaped for the hill
Having eaten Crow’s words
Crow gazed after the bounding hare
Speechless with admiration
Burning
Burning
Burning
There was finally something
The sun could not burn, that it had rendered
Everything down to – a final obstacle
Against which it raged and charred
And rages and chars
Limpid among the glaring furnace clinkers
The pulsing blue tongues and the red and the yellow
The green licking of the conflagration
Limpid and black
Crow’s eye pupil in the tower of its scorched fort