HUGHES, Ted. Wodwo. London: Faber and Faber. 1971.
8vo. Black, grey and red card wrappers with white title lettering; pp. 9-184; slight creasing along the spine; otherwise near fine.
A warm inscription to close friend Nick Grant, "For Nick / With Love / from Ted / Christmas 1997".
Originally published in 1967, Wodwo was Ted Hughes's fourth collection. Unique in form, it comprises of three sections; the first and third of poems, the second of prose stories, and the third of more poems. Hughes invites the reader to treat the volume as "chapters of a single adventure". The title poem concludes the collection, "What am I doing here in mid-air?/ Why do I find/ this frog so interesting as I inspect its most secret/ interior and make it my own?".
Hughes's first collection since the death of his wife, the poet Sylvia Plath, in 1963, some of the poems reflect the trauma of the aftermath such as in the haunting Song of a Rat, "And 'Do not go' cry the dandelions….'Stay' says the arrangement of stars".
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