The name Mytholmroyd means 'a clearing for settlement, where two rivers meet' and is likely to come from the Old English (ge)mthum for 'river mouth' and rodu meaning 'field' or 'clearing'.
Somewhere amongst my books I have Ted Hughes book of poems called 'The Remains of Elmet'. I have still to find it, but I was reminded of him yesterday when I read a bit of news about a statue being erected in Mytholmroyd of two foxes and a milk churn in honour of his poem 'Milk Churn Joan'. A lass of folklore myth that was I believe devoured by foxes high on the moors and there is, supposedly a stone commemorating it.
Hughes widow does not like the idea, the town are in a sense erecting the statue to gain more tourist status. Apparently Hughes only lived in the town for the first eight years of his life, at 1, Aspinall Street. You can even stay there as it is a holiday cottage but more 50/60s style.
The book has dark depressing photographs by Fay Godwin, exactly capturing the bleakness of the North. The artistic interpretation of 'The North' leaves one overawed but at the same time under impressed, and one longs for the chalk downs of Wiltshire or the Cotswold Way.
You can imagine Hughes curve of mind as he tramped the moors, he is a miserable old bastard at times, what with his hunting and melancholia. But perhaps that is what we need to leaven the false hope of optimism that occasionally takes a swerving route through the mind.
The heading is of course from 'Thought Fox', listening to Hughes recite it and I am with him crossing the dark space not only of the woods but the mind as well.
The kingdom of Elmet intrigues me, one of those small countries that nestled once inside greater Britain, it doesn't exist anymore but a fleeting reference in the history books.
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox,
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
Although I love poetry (RS Thomas, Philip Larkin, many others) I have never really been a Ted Hughes fan = most of his poetry is so dark and depressing. I have quite a lot of it on my shelves but rarely read ir.
ReplyDeleteWell I think the area he came from helped with his dark and gloomy poetry. R.S. Thomas was almost as gloomy.
DeleteI feel almost the opposite of Anon above in that I usually do not like poetry, with some exceptions. Ted Hughes is one and Phillip Larkin is another.
ReplyDeleteWhen we visited the grave of his first wife, Sylvia Plath at Heptonstall, people had tried to rub his name out because of her suicide. We are now trying to change history as well, a silly undertaking because it has already been written.
DeleteI was a bit shocked when I heard him say that he only ever hit her once, when she was going a bit mad on a bus.
DeleteThinking about it Tom, and it was quite common to smack a female in the face when they became 'hysterical', not justifying his action but it could have been the reason.
DeleteI have that book somewhere too, but I love the photographs. Dark yes, but not depressing I think, or at least not to me. What a great poet he was.
ReplyDelete'Pike' is probably the most popular and it always brings back memories of muddiness when eating one as a child. Watching a baby duckling pulled down from the surface and knowing that it was old Pike feasting.
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