Today’s poem is by the late Ted Hughes, who—among other things—was the poet laureate to H.R.M. Queen Elizabeth II and the husband of Miss Sylvia Plath. This poem is about his first meeting with Miss Plath—well, sort of—and can be found in his remaindered-everywhere Birthday Letters.
Where was it, in the Strand? A display
Of news items, in photographs.
For some reason I noticed it.
A picture of that year’s intake
Of Fulbright Scholars. Just arriving—Or arrived. Or some of them.
Were you among them? I studied it,
Not too minutely, wondering
Which of them I might meet.
I remember that thought. Not
Your face. No doubt I scanned particularly
The girls. Maybe I noticed you.
Maybe I weighed you up, feeling unlikely.
Noted your long hair, loose waves—Your Veronica Lake bang. Not what it hid.
It would appear blond. And your grin.
Your exaggerated American
Grin for the cameras, the judges, the strangers, the frighteners.
Then I forgot. Yet I remember
The picture: the Fulbright Scholars.
With their luggage? It seems unlikely.
Could they have come as a team? I was walking
Sore-footed, under hot sun, hot pavements.
Was it then I bought a peach? That’s as I remember.
From a stall near Charing Cross Station.
It was the first fresh peach I had ever tasted.
I could hardly believe how delicious.
At twenty-five I was dumbfounded afresh
By my ignorance of the simplest things.
Your head in a
gas oven
as I slowly drove you mad…
they should have made february national poetry month.
This poem inspired rage at a symposium in 98 or so when the presenter claimed that “Sylvia Plath didn’t even HAVE bangs” instead of seeing what a Veronica Lake bang might have been, or instead of remembering that this is a POEM and that you can make stuff up if you want.
Vendela was very upset by this.
About the comment or the poem? He’s the fucking answer for me: HE WAS MARRIED TO HER!! If the person saying that had slept with Sylvia Plath I would have let them talk about it.
For Veronica Lake bang, I suggest her hobo costume in the classic Sullivan’s Travels.
Other choice bits and bobs: the two Alan Ladd films (The Glass Key and This Gun for Hire) and the WWII Pacific nurses soaper, So Porudly We Hail!
I lived in England when Ted Hughes was made Poet Laureate and rad some awful shit in th Times for E2s bday etc. BDay letters is a good collection of poems whatever take you have on his complicity in Plath’s death.
Gorjus, I don’t get your comment. Vendela was pissed because the speaker took Ted’s poems—the whole book—completely and tragically literally. Sure, they’re the only poems about Sylvia. Sure, they are based on real events. But when you get down to it, you can’t use Birthday Letters to prove much factually. Also, and this is the important part, who cares if she had bangs or not, and who cares if they went straight across her head or if they swept to the side like Veronica Lake’s? The speaker’s thesis was basically the following:
a. Ted is an asshole
b. Ted is a liar
c. Proof of a and b: he just said she had bangs and she didn’t [but really she did, not that it mattered, and the speaker hadn’t bothered to look up and see what the hell kind of bang that was]
Dumb.
I liked the Iron Giant.
i read crow when i was 17 and wanted to make out with ted hughes forever. i didn’t care if he was some old coot by then.
ps—sylvia plath is an over-rated and dumb. i liked her when i was younger, but then i graduated high school. she did go well with my poseur terri nunn hair-do, swans patches, and steel toes.
“the death bell
the death bell
somebody’s done for”
viva la peter murphy.
The Iron Giant fucking rules, and so does Peter Murphy.