The poem
Terrifying are the attent sleek thrushes on the lawn, More coiled steel than living - a poised Dark deadly eye, those delicate legs Triggered to stirrings beyond sense - with a start, a bounce, a stab Overtake the instant and drag out some writhing thing. No indolent procrastinations and no yawning states, No sighs or head-scratchings. Nothing but bounce and stab And a ravening second.
Is it their single-mind-sized skulls, or a trained Body, or genius, or a nestful of brats Gives their days this bullet and automatic Purpose? Mozart's brain had it, and the shark's mouth That hungers down the blood-smell even to a leak of its own Side and devouring of itself: efficiency which Strikes too streamlined for any doubt to pluck at it Or obstruction deflect.
With a man it is otherwise. Heroisms on horseback, Outstripping his desk-diary at a broad desk, Carving at a tiny ivory ornament For years: his act worships itself - while for him, Though he bends to be blent in the prayer, how loud and above what Furious spaces of fire do the distracting devils Orgy and hosannah, under what wilderness Of black silent waters weep.
thrush is not an animal .. what was ted hughes thinking!!! this is a disspointment on the level of education us humans have . i am extremely appauled that one man would think thrush is an animal .. just because he has never experience such a traumatic event in a womans life.
dear 101 , i am extremely dissppointed to hear about ted hughes death however i was not dissappointed to hear he had a yeast infection .. i once supported the views of this very man ... until i heard of his taste for menstral blood. i suggest in future he fall for a lady not so dynamic like sylvia plath! i wish him a jolly good sleep in his grave and hope he no longer like menstral blood thank you ... and if anyone would like to contact me on my thoughts just call me .. [phone removed]
I've read a few of Hughes' poems and they have fascinated me. They are fascinating in a very terrifying way that sort of sends chills up your spine. And yet, they hold some truths that hit you smack in the face. 'Thrushes' does the same. But having read the poem the birds seem so mechanized that I would much rather be a doubting, complex human. Much as the poem talks of instinct and how humans go against instinct - and I agree - it is the "feeling" that the words and sharp phrases of the poem gives on first reading it that makes me say otherwise!
I must say that a thrush is in fact an animal its a bird. So in no way does it reflect upon the intellegence of human beings...except for maybe yours
#LAD
Ted Hughes is possibly as baller as it gets - he has no qualms in addressing human nature through the medium of a horrible infection, tackling contempory issues with such semenal virilty as to cause instant and contagious arousal in the reader. This class-A badman has crafted a masterpiece of slaying and i guarantee that Plath was just jealous of his inability to stop slicing and dicing his way through the female population.
When i grow up I want to be just like Ted Hughes.