April is National Poetry Month. Let’s celebrate.
The following poems are from Crow, Ted Hughes’ landmark, controversial (and out-of-print) book about good and evil, man and woman, life and death, God and crow. The language is primal. The imagery is brutal and sometimes misogynistic. But the poetry is undeniable.
They are not pretty poems. They are composed of half-chewed gristle and crunched-up bone. They scorch the tongue, disturb the stomach, repulse the heart. And that is why we should read them.
On the back of my copy, there is a quote from Anne Sexton:
Here are the some of the poems that begin the book, which, I note, was first recommended to me by my good friend Tom.
Two Legends
I
Black was the without eye
Black the within tongue
Black was the heart
Black the liver, black the lungs
Unable to suck in light
Black the blood in its loud tunnel
Black the bowels packed in furnace
Black too the muscles
Striving to pull out into the light
Black the nerves, black the brain
With its tombed visions
Black also the soul, the huge stammer
Of the cry that, swelling, could not
Pronounce its sun.
II
Black is the wet otter’s head, lifted.
Black is the rock, plunging in foam.
Black is the gall lying on the bed of the blood.
Black is the earth-globe, one inch under,
An egg of blackness
Where sun and moon alternate their weathers
To hatch a crow, a black rainbow
Bent in emptiness
over emptiness
But flying
Lineage
In the beginning was Scream
Who begat Blood
Who begat Eye
Who begat Fear
Who begat Wing
Who begat Bone
Who begat Granite
Who begat Violet
Who begat Guitar
Who begat Seat
Who begat Adam
Who begat Mary
Who begat God
Who begat Nothing
Who begat Never
Never Never Never
Who begat Crow
Screaming for Blood
Grubs, crusts
anything
Trembling featherless elbows in the nest’s filth
Examination at the Womb-Door
Who owns these scrawny little feet? Death.
Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death.
Who owns these still-working lungs? Death.
Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death.
Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death.
Who owns these questionable brains? Death.
All this messy blood? Death.
These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death.
This wicked little tongue? Death.
This occasional wakefulness? Death.
Given, stolen, or held pending trial?
Held.
Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth? Death.
Who owns all of space? Death.
Who is stronger than hope? Death.
Who is stronger than the will? Death.
Stronger than love? Death.
Stronger than life? Death.
But who is stronger than death?
Me, evidently.
Pass, Crow.
A Childish Prank
Man’s and woman’s bodies lay without souls,
Dully gaping, foolishly staring, inert
On the flowers of Eden.
God pondered.
The problem was so great, it dragged him asleep.
Crow laughed.
He bit the Worm, God’s only son,
Into two writhing halves.
He stuffed into man the tail half
With the wounded end hanging out.
He stuffed the head half headfirst into woman
And it crept in deeper and up
To peer out through her eyes
Calling its tail-half to join up quickly, quickly
Because O it was painful.
Man awoke being dragged across the grass.
Woman awoke to see him coming.
Neither knew what had happened.
God went on sleeping.
Crow went on laughing.
Crow’s First Lesson
God tried to teach Crow how to talk.
“Love,” said God. “Say, Love.”
Crow gaped, and the white shark crashed into the sea
And went rolling downwards, discovering its own depth.
“No, no,” said God, “Say Love. Now try it. LOVE.”
Crow gaped, and a bluefly, a tsetse, a mosquito
Zoomed out and down
To their sundry flesh-pots.
“A final try,” said God. “Now, LOVE.”
Crow convulsed, gaped, retched and
Man’s bodiless prodigious head
Bulbed out onto the earth, with swivelling eyes,
Jabbering protest –
And Crow retched again, before God could stop him.
And woman’s vulva dropped over man’s neck, and tightened.
The two struggled together on the grass.
God struggled to part them, cursed, wept –
Crow flew guiltily off.
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