An episode from 12/7/21: Tonight, I read eleven short poems from a handful of books that Ted Hughes published during the 1970s. As I talk about in the introduction, this decade saw the writing and publication of Hughes's most powerful books: Crow, Moortown Diary, Remains of Elmet, and River (which themselves did not find their final form until the 1990s).

In between these books, Hughes published a handful of other collections, mostly through small presses. Few of these books can be read from start to finish as successful wholes; however, the best poems from them are as strong as anything he ever wrote, and they deserve to be heard together. They can all be found in his Collected Poems:

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Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to [email protected].