Full Moon and Little Frieda
A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket --
And you listening.
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming -- mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.
Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm
wreaths of breath --
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk.
'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!'
The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed.
Commentary
This week’s theme: the Moon. We start with a guest poem submitted by Mike Christie:
When I was fifteen I liked poetry, but for some reason I was under the impression that if a poet didn’t stick to rhyme and metre they were just being lazy. I liked Keats, Byron, Rossetti, Housman; romantic verse in traditional forms. Not too unusual for a fifteen year-old. Then, in English class, I read an anthology of modern verse that included Andrew Motion, Seamus Heaney, and Ted Hughes. None of it stuck at the time except the Hughes, and I loved ‘Pike’, ‘The Thought Fox’, and ‘Hawk in the Rain’. Right at the end of the anthology was ‘Full Moon and Little Frieda’.
I was completely taken aback. I can still remember reading it over and over, trying to figure out why on earth I liked it so much when it didn’t do anything I had thought a poem had to do. It’s no longer my favourite Hughes poem – that would have to be something in the Crow series; and Larkin has since overtaken Hughes as my favourite modern poet. But I have a deep affection for this poem; it taught me in a few seconds more than I knew there was to learn.
I like the way the first line spreads a canvas: “a cool small evening”: and the rest of the poem shines a light only on selected, disconnected areas of the canvas. It’s about as far as you can get from a judgmental work; the poet contributes six or seven almost independent images but lets the reader assemble them at will. And the tenses are interesting, too: the poem is an instantaneous snapshot, lasting only a second or so: all the actions are either past, or present but captured as a moment. The only action is the cry of ‘Moon!’.
— Mike Christie
Other Minstrels poems by Ted Hughes:
Poem #42, "Hawk Roosting"
Poem #98, "The Thought Fox"
Poem #417, "Thistles"
Poem #671, "Lineage"
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Speed Chuck · 23 September 2002
Hi There -
I am wondering if you had to obtain permission from the Estate of Ted Hughes in order to put his poem on the net.
I need to contact the estate and I am wondering if you have the appropriate names and telephone numbers.
Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!
Best regards,
Chuck Speed
Don Gottlieb · 21 December 2002
The poem first lulls me and then I am startled by the child’s cry. I end up awestruck by the imagery of the child and the moon, regarding each other. I never tire of this poem and am always stunned by it’s simple, pure nature. JoAnne Gottlieb
MarjorMy7 · 15 February 2005
Dear Chuck, I read your message about permission for the Ted Hughes poem. It seems you were asking how to do this. Did you have any luck? I wrote a piece of music last year with a Ted Hughes poem as lyrics. I have been in touch with Faber & Faber (the publisher) all this time, but it is impossible to get a response Any advice would be welcome.
Best wishes,
Phoebe Myhill. .