'Moortown Diary keeps its eye firmly on the creatures behind the language. It's written in the style of Hughes's play translations: very swift and bright and urgent and speakable . . . Hughes strips away the protective layers - the soundproofed ears, the double-glazed eyes - that prevent us making contact with anything outside ourselves. Right now, I can't think of anything more important than that kind of poem. Because we're not just here to think about literature. We're here to try to wake up.' Alice Oswald, The Guardian'It grips your heart, and your intestines, like a vice from the first page. He makes language as physical as a bruise, and in these poems beauty and tenderness blend with violence.' John Carey, Sunday Times'The Moortown sequence includes some of Hughes's finest poems . . . They are like no other poems I have read, with a degree of intensity, sanity and grace that he has never equalled.' Anthony Thwaite, Times Literary Supplement Imprint: Faber & FaberFormat: PaperbackLanguage: EnglishCopyright Year: 2006Course Code: SUSS, ELT377
