Ted Hughes: Poems selected by Simon Armitage

The response of one writer to the work of another can be doubly illuminating. In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces another poet of a different generation whom they have particularly admired. By their selection of verses and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their introductions, the selectors offer intriguing insight into their own work, as well as providing an introduction to the work of some of the most influential poets of our time.

Simon Armitage was born in West Yorkshire in 1963. He has published six collections of poetry as well as an autobiographical prose book, All Points North. He works as a freelance writer and broadcaster, and teaches at universities in this country and the United States.

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) was born in Yorkshire. His first book, The Hawk in the Rain, was published in 1957. His last collection, Birthday Letters, was published in 1998 and won the Whitbread Book of the Year, the Forward Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and awarded the Order of Merit in 1998.