The poet Ted Hughes. Dyma'r bardd - Ted Hughes.
| In our English lessons this fortnight we have been reading and discussing the poetry of Ted Hughes. In his poetry, Ted Hughes often builds up vivid imagery of animals and the natural world. We enjoyed reading and responding to the poems 'Cat', 'Dog' and 'Jellyfish'. We analysed the poems and thought carefully about Hughes' use of imagery, his figurative language such as similes and metaphors, and his use of poetic techniques such as repetition, alliteration and onomatopoeia. |
Dyma'r llun gan Seren. Here is Seren's drawing based upon an image from Ted Hughes' poem.
| We read and discussed in detail the Ted Hughes' poem 'The Seven Sorrows' in which he develops powerful imagery of Autumn. In each stanza, Hughes develops an extended image of Autumn which suggests a sadness or 'sorrow'. In one stanza, for example, the poet 'zooms in' on a "pheasant who hangs from a hook.....the woodland of gold folded in feathers". We each chose an image from the poem that we considered to be effective and succeeded in building up vivid pictures in our imaginations. We then had to draw what we imagined when we read the imagery and explain what it prompted us to think of. This is the image Seren pictured in her head when she read "The pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers". She explains that she "can imagine layers of gold, red and yellow feathers hanging." |
We wrote poems about 'The Sorrows of Winter'.
| We wrote our own poems in the style of Ted Hughes. Using his poem 'The Seven Sorrows' as a model, we wrote poems titled 'The Sorrows of Winter'. In each stanza of our poem, we aimed to develop an image of a 'sadness' or 'sorrow' associated with Winter. We tried to avoid cliched images such as melting snowmen and aimed instead to write original, unusual images that would have an impact upon the reader. We also tried to use figurative language such as similes and metaphors, as well as other poetic techniques such as repetition, alliteration and onomatopoeia. |
We have written vivid imagery.
| Hywel, for example, described "Winter's violent breath". Rhys zoomed in on "a frosted web shrivelled onto a scabbed spider". Rosie built up powerful images of a withering rose - "encaged in Winter's harsh claws". Vivid imagery was used throughout Kayleigh's poem such as her image of "a vehicle suffocated in a murderous bed of pale snow ....". We hope you take the time to read some of the stanzas of our poems 'The Sorrows of Winter' below. |
| The first sorrow of Winter Is the slow goodbye Of the shrivelling rose encaged by Winter's violent breath Perishing in death, Immobilized by fear into darkness, Buried beneath a strangling cloth of snow. by Hywel |
| The second sorrow Is the splintered bench that sits alone, Abandoned, Waiting for company, Dejected; dejected by many, Imprisoned beneath a blanket of death. by Rosie. |
| The third sorrow Is the slow goodbye Of the wrinkled hands, Numbed by Winter's blistering breath Winter's fangs sinking into creased skin Frozen by Olly |
| The fourth sorrow Is the silky web sprayed with spider carcasses Obliterated by ferocious winds Snatched from its sanctuary, Destroyed, Hanging; disintegrating. by Liam |
| And the fifth sorrow Is the slow goodbye Of the crying robin Frozen, frozen to the skeletal tree, Exposed to cruel frost, Vulnerable to everything. by Olivia. |
| And the final sorrow Is the creaking lake, Ice cracking from within, Endless days locked in a vice of cold, Wrenched ice breaks into jagged jigsaws, Forgotten. by Lewys |
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