Waxworks: Poems

Frieda Hughes has seven successful childrens' books on her resume. Waxworks is her third book of poems and this is my second detour into her mind, the first being her poetry debut Wooroloo. Waxworks carries the same dark blanket of Wooroloo but this one is more fun. Hughes, an artist, created the work for the cover. It features a mystical sculpture of a woman with golden hair with subtle snakeheads at the end. Appropriately, Medusa is the first poem presented and introduces the flavour to follow: "She is a gypsy / Whose young have rooted / In the very flesh of her scalp." Eighty more characters from both fiction and non-fiction are examined. Biblical people like Judas, Lazarus, the Horsemen and Satan; some from Greek Mythology like Hera and Circe; tales from Merlin and Morgan le Fey and childhood characters like Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin. The different genres of tales are split making you go back and forth between them as you read. Just in case you don't know who the characters are, there is a note on each one in the back of the book describing what they are known for. The only poem that doesn't have a description is Satan. Hughes brings alive a few little-known tales like that of Sweeny Todd, a barber who slit the throats of his patrons for the meat pies he sold in a neighbouring business. Then there is Burke and Hare who lured travelers to their boarding house, killed them, then sold their bodies for research just to make a few cents. The dark twisted acts of betrayal, murder or slander are as good as any thriller film and leave a lasting impression like in Jezebel. I found Morgan Le Fey a bit confusing; specifically the last three stanzas where the perspective seemed to switch to Merlin's making me forget I was reading a poem about Morgan. Although this may have been intention since some versions of the tale ascribe they are one in the same. While most of the poems I mention here carry a bit of gore they also carry a moral or metaphor of some kind. I love Hughes interpretation. If you have an interest in any of these themes, I recommend this book. If you can't bear a little darkness within the light then I don't recommend this book. If you've never experienced Frieda Hughes, I recommend this book. If you're a fan of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (Frieda's parents), that isn't reason enough to venture into Frieda's mind. Her work stands on its own and should be looked at as such. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Review Originally Posted at http://www.linearreflections.com

This is one of the best books of poetry I've read in the last thirty years. I've never read any poems like these. There has been a great deal of comment about Frieda Hughes' parents and how much her work has been influenced by her parentage. I don't see the difficulty here. Her subjects, as well as her approaches, are uniquely her own. What she does share in common with both Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath is her remarkable intensity and the seemingly endless inventiveness of her images. It may be my imagination, but this book does seem to have a central theme, what we could call a plot in a work of fiction. The woman who haunts these poems is a mother or step-mother who is eventually revealed as a monstrous human being. Much of Waxworks charts how this woman has tormented the various speakers, who are, of course, speaking through masks the author has put on. I found this a fascinating work, one I keep coming back to again and again. Each time I read it I find more to admire in it: and more to discover. The poems deepen with each reading. Read Frieda Hughes to hear her own voice and become acquainted with her own unique and complex mind. She does not need the reflected glory some believe her parents have bestowed upon her. She is a glory of her own. It is worth the trouble to read her as she is and not as an addendum to anyone else's biography.

This is a wonderful and very powerful book of poetry. I suspect many of the poems are autobiographical, although since the poet speaks through many historical personages, the autobiographical element is well-disguised. I've read very few books of poems that have this intensity as well as the enormous skill displayed in poem after poem. I would recommend this book to anyone, but I would add that it should be indispensable to any serious writer of poetry. This author is the real thing.