Ted Hughes’s Crow at Fifty: a Seminar

In October 1970 the poet Ted Hughes published Crow: from the Life and Songs of the Crow. The Ted Hughes Society and Hughes’s alma mater, Pembroke College Cambridge, are proud to invite their members to a seminar exploring the extraordinary power and enduring life ofCrow, a collection which many regard as one of the twentieth century’s most important works of poetry.

In the fifty years since Crow’s publication, poets, sculptors, musicians and environmentalists have been amongst those disturbed and inspired by its mysterious energy, its anger and its comedy. To mark this anniversary, a distinguished panel will be exploring Crow on the page and Crow through the air:

Dame Marina Warner: Patron of the Ted Hughes Society, eminent novelist, mythographer and memoirist, and author of a foreword to Faber & Faber’s anniversary edition of Crow

Alice Oswald: leading poet, editor of A Ted Hughes Bestiary and Oxford Professor of Poetry, who in November made Crow the subject of her third Oxford lecture

Mark Cocker: naturalist, environmental activist and author of Crow Country

Grzegorz Kwiatkowski: Polish poet and musician

A number of other speakers will be sharing their own encounters with Hughes’s Crow, and there will be an opportunity for members to contribute to discussion.

The seminar will also include a first view of Irish painter Barrie Cooke’s wild responses to Crow, in charcoal, ink and enamel, from his extraordinary literary archive and collection, recently acquired by Pembroke College.

To register for this seminar you need to be either a Member of Pembroke College, the Ted Hughes Society (subscription details at http://thetedhughessociety.org/join), one of its partner organisations, the Elmet Trust or The Ted Hughes Project (South Yorkshire).

On registration attendees will be sent a range of preparatory reading, viewing and listening, to help them make the most of our discussion on March 17th.

Register for the seminar.

Image: Crow Record Cover II

Credit: The Estate of Barrie Cooke. Photograph by the Cambridge Colleges Conservation Consortium.