Rate-a-poem: Thistles

Thistles
by Ted Hughes
1930 - 1998


Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.

Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasped fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up

From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.

Then they grow grey like men.
Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear
Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.

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oh noes! Double post, sorry. And the poll thingy didn't work. Will try to fix it.

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o.k., I'm incompetent setting up the poll window, so, just go ahead with comments etc. Hughes was the apex of so many miserable womens' lives, yet he often wrote about things such as thistles. He seemed to have a special sort of oblivion toward what his women (and there were many, many women) were experiencing emotionally.

I actually love this particular poem, being a country girl. For me it captures thistles, exceptionally durable plants, quite vividly. Strength, duration, and continuum.

lol, dolores -

Hughes could be a tough prickly bastid, too, so maybe there was some major subliminal stuff going on there when he wrote it. Maybe there's a ton of allegory there, or maybe it's all just a trick. And maybe it's just about thistles.

Yes.

He came under a lot of fire after Sylvia's death for not expressing a word about it poetically. It wasn't until after Assia took herself and their daughter Shura away that he revealed all those years in poems, including Sylvia in that. But for a long time he behaved as if Sylvia had never existed, which, gee, may have had something to do with her gassing herself, aside from her existing inner troubles.

And then, incredibly, he continued as a serial cheater while with his last wife, after all that.

I think Hughes was probably as close to being a thistle as a human being can get - there was only a tiny part of him that you could dare to touch without your getting hurt. The rest was tough, and dangerous.

I relate to this poem immediately because of the obvious, because, like you, I'm well-acquainted with thistles. But, it may be more autobiographical than appears at first blush.