Thursday poem - Wodwo by Ted Hughes

Wodwo

What am I? Nosing here, turning leaves over
Following a faint stain on the air to the river's edge
I enter water. Who am I to split
The glassy grain of water looking upward I see the bed
Of the river above me upside down very clear
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? Do these weeds
know me and name me to each other have they
seen me before, do I fit in their world? I seem
separate from the ground and not rooted but dropped
out of nothing casually I've no threads
fastening me to anything I can go anywhere
I seem to have been given the freedom
of this place what am I then? And picking
bits of bark off this rotten stump gives me
no pleasure and it's no use so why do I do it
me and doing that have coincided very queerly
But what shall I be called am I the first
have I an owner what shape am I what
shape am I am I huge if I go
to the end on this way past these trees and past these trees
till I get tired that's touching one wall of me
for the moment if I sit still how everything
stops to watch me I suppose I am the exact centre
but there's all this what is it roots
roots roots roots and here's the water
again very queer but I'll go on looking

Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998) Collected Poems

I posted one of my favourite Ted Hughes poems. He was former British Poet Laureatte, and I wonder if high school kids in England, who study his poetry, get turned off and fed up of it. I didn't "study" his poetry in high school. And so I still enjoy reading them. This is quite a famous poem, published in the hard to find collection, "Wodwo", in 1967. I think that the Wodwo is some sort of forest spirit/goblin type creature. Or sometimes I think it suggests a kind of "Adam-spirit" first arriving in nature's Eden. But in effect it could be anything at the dawn of consciousness; beginning to ask questions about who they are and what they are. We all do it. And I think we go on questioning as we are continually confronted and confused by life and all of its innate uncertainties. This poem asks the fundamental questions that we ask. And the conclusion or "answer" is what we already know; that we must simply keep asking and keep looking. (more on a "Wodwo")