Poetry for Students

Volume 19 183 into the present time, as in In an Iridescent Time; in “Green Apples” Stone writes: “In August we car- ried the ol ...

184 Poetry for Students myself in oral fragments... .” “Some Things You’ll Need to Know before You Join the Union” is an- other ...

Volume 19 185 descent Time, with a new complexity, a richer, ma- turer vision: Laughter from women gathers like reeds in the riv ...

Perfect Light What astounds many readers about Ted Hughes’s Birthday Letters(1998) is the tender, honest, and confessional voice ...

Volume 19 187 day Lettersis the only collection in which this Poem Summary Author Biography Ted Hughes was born August 17, 1930, ...

188 Poetry for Students and the rest of the poem confirms it. This opening line also contains the first use of the word “inno- c ...

Volume 19 189 slowly out of no-man’s-land.” The location of no- man’s land is significant because it means the land between two ...

190 Poetry for Students stanza, which is nearly twice as long as the second, Hughes stresses over and over again the innocent ph ...

Volume 19 191 Thatcher resigned in 1990 after her economic poli- cies resulted in decaying inner cities, and her op- position to ...

192 Poetry for Students the overuse of violent animal imagery, dark set- tings, and bleak themes, usually considering the ve- he ...

Volume 19 193 peating “you” and “your” over and over is the method of a man compelled to get his message across, not to the worl ...

194 Poetry for Students destruction. And most importantly, at least in Hughes’s defense, she had already attempted sui- cide in ...

Volume 19 195 Her smile becomes more complex. The children be- come objects of pathos rather than only “cute kids.” All of the i ...

196 Poetry for Students kill herself is “Inside the hill” on which she is posed. The landscape itself seems pregnant with meanin ...

Volume 19 197 Perfect Light 67082 _PFS_V19perfe 186 - 204 .qxd 9/16/2003 9:53 M Page 197 ...

198 Poetry for Students Perfect Light 67082 _PFS_V19perfe 186 - 204 .qxd 9/16/2003 9:53 M Page 198 ...

Volume 19 199 Perfect Light 67082 _PFS_V19perfe 186 - 204 .qxd 9/16/2003 9:53 M Page 199 ...

200 Poetry for Students Perfect Light 67082 _PFS_V19perfe 186 - 204 .qxd 9/16/2003 9:53 M Page 200 ...

Volume 19 201 Perfect Light 67082 _PFS_V19perfe 186 - 204 .qxd 9/16/2003 9:53 M Page 201 ...

202 Poetry for Students Perfect Light 67082 _PFS_V19perfe 186 - 204 .qxd 9/16/2003 9:53 M Page 202 ...