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 and considered one of his most complex. Unique in form, it comprises of three sections; the first of poems, the second of short stories, and the third of more poems. Regardless, in his Author's Note, Hughes invites the reader to treat the experience as consuming "chapters of a single adventure". The poem Wodwo 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?".
It was Hughes's first collection since the tragic suicide of his wife, the poet Sylvia Plath, in 1963 and 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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