 First edition | |
| Author | Ted Hughes |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Publisher | Faber Paperbacks |
Publication date | 1992 |
| Pages | 64 |
| ISBN | 978-0571166053 |
Rain-charm for the Duchy is a book of poems by Ted Hughes. The book contains poems written by Hughes during his tenure as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, from 1984. The poems in the book celebrate royal occasions. [1] [2] The book was first published by Faber and Faber in 1992. [3]
In Literary Review , in March 1995, Robert Nye reviewed what he jokingly called the "New Selected Spells by the Royal Witch Doctor". One of these 'spells' was "Rain-Charm for the Duchy", Hughes's 1984 hymn of praise to the rivers of the West Country, in celebration of Prince Harry’s christening. Nye wrote, "John Betjeman's old suit hardly fits a dour Yorkshireman with ambitions to be a sort of royal witch doctor. Only one of those Laureate effusions is included here, the one for HRH Prince Harry, which has some decent lines about salmon responding to a storm." [4]
In 2021 Yvonne Reddick, Research Fellow at the University of Central Lancashire, reviewing the book for the Ted Hughes Society wrote, "Rain-Charm focuses more on storms and salmon than royal baptisms, more on the land of the Duchy than on the Royal Family itself. Its finished title was Rain-Charm for the Duchy: A Blessed, Devout Drench for the Christening of His Royal Highness Prince Harry. Yet in early typescripts, it was entitled After the Five Month Drought, Rain Charm for Bringing Back the Salmon, or simply Rain-Charm. ... Alongside his characteristic language of the sublime forces of nature, Hughes includes a realistic catalogue of the pollutants which human beings have poured into the Tavy. This is the work of a poet who was not just a royal witch-doctor, but also a passionate, high-profile environmental activist." [5]
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her suicide in 1963. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honour posthumously.
Edward James Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008 The Times ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
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Wendy Cope is a contemporary English poet. She read history at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She now lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire, with her husband, the poet Lachlan Mackinnon.
Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel Beckett, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Milan Kundera and Kazuo Ishiguro.
The River Taw rises at Taw Head, a spring on the central northern flanks of Dartmoor, crosses North Devon and at the town of Barnstaple, formerly a significant port, empties into Bideford Bay in the Bristol Channel, having formed a large estuary of wide meanders which at its western end is the estuary of the River Torridge.
Mervyn Eustace Morris OM is a poet and professor emeritus at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. According to educator Ralph Thompson, "In addition to his poetry, which has ranked him among the top West Indian poets, he was one of the first academics to espouse the importance of nation language in helping to define in verse important aspects of Jamaican culture." Morris was Poet Laureate of Jamaica from 2014 to 2017.
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
John Burnside FRSL FRSE is a Scottish writer. He is one of only three poets to have won both the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for the same book.
Robert Nye FRSL was an English poet and author. His bestselling novel Falstaff, published in 1976, was described by Michael Ratcliffe as "one of the most ambitious and seductive novels of the decade", and went on to win both The Hawthornden Prize and Guardian Fiction Prize. The novel was also included in Anthony Burgess's 99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939 (1984).
David Morley is a British poet, professor, and ecologist. His best-selling textbook The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing has been translated into many languages. His major poetry collections include FURY, Scientific Papers, The Invisible Kings, Enchantment, The Gypsy and the Poet, and The Magic of What's There are published by Carcanet Press. The Invisible Gift: Selected Poems was published by Carcanet and won The Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. He was awarded a Cholmondeley Award by The Society of Authors for his body of work and contribution to poetry. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature. FURY published in August 2020 was a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for The Forward Prize for Best Collection.
John Glenday grew up in Monifieth.
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