[speaker001:] Can you pass them round please, one between two.
[speaker002:] We're doing that.
[speaker001:] O K. What I propose to do is I'm going to read this poem aloud and then we discuss it as a group
[speaker003:] .
[speaker001:] So I'll introduce this poem to you and we'll read it aloud.... Then we will discuss it er via the questions. So we don't want more than one person speaking at once otherwise it won't be clear, the tape recording, O K. This is by Ted Hughes, The Thought Fox. [reading] I imagine this midnight moment's forest. Something else is alive beside the clock's loneliness and this blank page where my fingers move. Through the window I see no star. Something more near though deeper within darkness is entering the loneliness. Cold, delicately as the dark snow, a fox's nose touches twig, leaf. Two eyes serve a movement that now and again now and now and now sets neat prints into the snow between trees and warily allaying shadows shadow lies by a stump in a hollow of a body that is bold to come across clearings, an eye, a widening, deepening greenness brilliantly concentratedly coming about its own business till with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox, it enters the dark hole of the head. The window is starless still, the clock ticks []
[speaker003:] [cough]
[speaker001:] [reading] the page is printed. [] Now what I want us to do is to look at these questions er because we're being tape recorded, I am not going to give you time to work on a questions
[speaker003:] [cough].
[speaker001:] individually because
[speaker003:] [cough].
[speaker001:] a small group discussion wouldn't come out. Erm but we'll do the questions together as a class and I would like you to just speak one at a time, otherwise it will all get blurry. We'll take it a bit gradually to begin with. So the first question is, where do you imagine the poet to be at the beginning of the poem. Whose going to answer that? who can answer that.... Dead silence... Michelle where do you think the poet is?
[Michelle:] Looking through a window.
[speaker001:] He's looking through a window, erm any advance on that? Lee, no, Elizabeth?
[Elizabeth:] In his room writing.
[speaker001:] In his room writing, yes. Erm, what time of day do you think it is?
[Elizabeth:] Night
[speaker001:] Night time, at night. What else is in the room?
[speaker003:] Clock.
[speaker001:] A clock, erm
[speaker003:] A page.
[speaker001:] A page a what?
[speaker003:] plain a piece of paper.
[speaker001:] plain a piece of paper, yes. Anybody else in the room?
[speaker003:] No.
[speaker001:] No O K. So he's on his own in the room at night, erm and what do you think is outside the window?
[speaker003:] A fox.
[speaker001:] A fox, a forest.
[speaker003:] .
[speaker001:] No stars. Erm... so you think it's in the countryside anyway?
[speaker003:] It doesn't have to be.
[speaker001:] It doesn't have to be, why doesn't it have to be? Go on, you might be right, go on.
[speaker003:] Well it just doesn't have to be.
[speaker001:] So you think it could be in the middle of London?
[speaker003:] [cough]. Yeah you get urban foxes. you get still times in cities and stuff when it's quiet
[speaker001:] A bit louder actually when you're speaking. Might not pick up they probably want to analyse our English or something to see how it's. Erm... so erm yes it was
[speaker003:] does.
[speaker001:] I think you're making a valid point here.
[speaker003:] Well it could all just be his imagination as well.
[speaker001:] Yes.
[speaker003:] Yeah. Yes.
[speaker001:] It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be a fox out there, it doesn't have to be a forest. Doesn't have to be in the countryside.
[speaker003:] like his memory or his imagination that's alive. wasn't.
[speaker001:] Yes, that's quite nice. So it's dreamlike what do you mean by that. What's he doing then?
[speaker003:] Well it's not very clear whether he's actually thinking or seeing it.
[speaker001:] It's not clear whether he's actually thinking about a fox or seeing a fox or so, yes. Good, you're getting on to good ideas now. Erm, in fact Ted Hughes I think has largely lived in the countryside so it is quite likely that his house in which he sets this poem is in the countryside. At one time he lived in Devon I think and he also has association with Yorkshire, so that is could be quite probably in the countryside but it doesn't have to be a forest, doesn't have to be a fox out there but he does actually say I imagine this midnight moment's forest. Erm, is there any other reason in the poem and I'm going away from questions now but is there any other reason in the poem why erm... why it, why he wouldn't see a forest or a fox out of the window? Any reason given in the first couple of stanzas.
[speaker003:] it's dark, there's no clouds in the, it's cloudy, there's no stars, so you wouldn't be able to see anything anyway.
[speaker001:] So it's too dark to see anything at all in fact. Through the window I see no star and he talks about the darkness, yes, good. So if the forest is not something that he can see, if you go back to question two, how do you interpret this midnight moment's forest? What do you think he means by that in the first line?
[speaker003:] Could it be like just he has his eyes shut, he wants to going on in his head.
[speaker001:] imagines a forest you think and of course there are real forests out there somewhere aren't there?
[speaker003:] Isn't it I imagine this midnight moment's forest?
[speaker001:] Yes, so.
[speaker003:] that says it all doesn't it?
[speaker001:] that's what?
[speaker003:] That says it all.
[speaker001:] He imagined the forest,
[speaker003:] Yes.
[speaker001:] yes. So there's a real forest out there somewhere but perhaps, perhaps not just outside his window, perhaps ten miles away, you know. Erm and he's imagining what's going on in it. In fact it could be very significant that the first words of the poem are, I imagine, because what does the poet, what do any of us do, we sit down to write something. We imagine, don't we? You write an essay, you imagine in your head what you might be going to put in your essay. Means you conjure up in your head. So that's the starting point. Erm, now we've got quite a lot out of that opening, so let's look at the rest of the first stanza. Something else is alive beside the clock's loneliness and this blank page where my fingers move. Erm and he goes on to describe it as something more near. Now I I'm asking you a question too. What do you think the something is? This is something else, that is alive and I've suggested at least two answers are possible. Erm Martin, what would you say something else alive is?
[Martin:] Erm fox innit.
[speaker001:] You're, you're very sure of it when you say fox innit. [LAUGHTER]. So where is this fox?
[Martin:] Well it's outside isn't it. it's either in his imagination or... he can see it.
[speaker001:] We've decided he can't see because it's dark.
[speaker003:] . But you can see the eyes twinkling in the dark. Yeah.
[speaker001:] You wouldn't be able to if they were.
[speaker003:] It is a fox. I [LAUGHTER]. called a thought fox it's called imagination
[speaker001:] I think it is a fox.
[speaker003:] .
[speaker001:] Yeah. The fox is what?
[speaker003:] The fox is him and the forest is like his life and everything going on around him.
[speaker001:] It's part of his consciousness, yes, that's a nice idea.
[speaker003:] So if something else is alive, it's like in his imagination. Yeah.
[speaker001:] Yes and what did he say
[speaker003:] .
[Cassandra:] Probably just saw a shadow or something.
[speaker001:] More like the shadow of his thoughts or something Yes.
[speaker003:] So it 's he could be deliberately trying to write about his life and that's the way he sees it
[speaker001:] as a fox.
[speaker003:] No as him being really isolated, you know, in a dark forest or whatever, I don't know.
[speaker001:] Yes. So the fox could be an image of himself. So I've suggested there are at least two answers possible for something else is alive. Erm, Martin says it's a real fox out there. Well it could be a real fox, when in fact if there is a forest out of his window at all,
[speaker003:] .
[speaker001:] he wouldn't have to see it, he could just know it's there but then why does he say, I imagine it
[speaker003:] . He doesn't.
[Michelle:] Well if he knows it's there he can still imagine it but he ca you can know that
[speaker001:] Yeah he could.
[Michelle:] things are actually outside but you can still imagine them in your mind if you can't see them
[speaker003:] but but then again if it's dark you're not going to be able to see those light footprints and whatever appearing and stuff sh.
[speaker001:] So all that is imagining, isn't it?
[speaker003:] It's gotta be, if he said it's dark.
[speaker001:] Yes.
[speaker003:] something.
[speaker001:] Well he doesn't even need to say anything at all actually you could just sit down, erm and start to write a poem about what he imagines. Erm, I mean there's a forest outside our window but it's not visible is it? There's a forest fifty miles off, it's outside our window because it's not in this room and to come a little nearer home ther there's a campus outside our window but we can't exactly see very much of it but we know it's there and it's got some birds in it, it's probably got some little insects in it and there's a woodpecker
[speaker003:] Squirrels.
[speaker001:] in it isn't there? Squirrels, erm so we can't see any of those things but we can imagine them, can't we? You can imagine the squirrels running up and down the trees without seeing them, so something else is alive. Yes there is something outside his window, however near or far and it is alive but he doesn't have to be seeing it and on the other hand something is alive in the room because actually if you look at the context of that, something else is alive beside the clock's loneliness and the blank page where my fingers move. If you confine yourself to inside the room where he's sitting very quiet and the only other
[speaker003:] [cough].
[speaker001:] noise is the clock ticking. What else is alive there, in that room which he's saying?
[speaker003:] The darkness.
[speaker001:] The darkness his imagination's alive.
[speaker003:] Mm.
[speaker001:] And what's his imagination going to be doing?
[speaker003:] Creating the image of a fox.
[speaker001:] Creating the image of a fox, yes and writing a poem. So
[speaker003:] [cough].
[speaker001:] if you like the germ of the idea of the poem is alive in his mind because he sits down at the page thinking I'm going to write a poem. What is it going to be about? Maybe it's going to be about a fox.
[Lucy:] [LAUGHTER]. It can also be like reference to erm the poem coming alive
[speaker001:] Yes.
[Lucy:] as he's writing it
[speaker001:] Do you want to tell me more about that?
[Lucy:] Well just that the words go down on paper, they seem to come alive within his imagination and around the room.
[speaker001:] They move round the room.
[Lucy:] Erm do you know like sometimes on telly they do it. Well he has someone saying that describing away and they say right they and just like jump off the page and start moving round the room [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] I think this is the idea of the poem though actually when you get to the end of the poem this is what it's about so it's a good idea
[speaker003:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] So I think there's something that is alive, yes, although in, er on one level it is a fox or some other creature outside there. It's his imagination and it's the poem that's coming alive. Is that what you meant Lucy?
[Lucy:] Yes.
[speaker001:] The poem's coming alive, yes.
[Lucy:] .
[speaker001:] That's right, yes and actually I'll digress to tell you ssh that erm this poem is published in a book by Ted Hughes a book called Poetry in the Making and it comes from a chapter called Capturing Animals. Now in this chapter, Capturing Animals he says that when he was young, before he ever started writing poems, he used to like animals, he used to like them dead as well as alive
[speaker003:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] Yeah. Sh and he says
[speaker003:] ssh
[speaker001:] and he says that he used to used to trap them. He used to trap animals and collect them and then one day instead of going out trapping animals he wrote this poem instead and ever afterwards he wrote poems instead of collecting animals.
[speaker003:] trap them.
[speaker001:] So he suddenly found that he preferred to write poems but what he's actually saying in that essay, is that he thinks poems are living things, just as animals are and that they're they're difficult to catch. I mean what's what's the similarity between trying to catch a fox and trying to write a poem? If you're going to sum it up in one word? How easy is it to catch a fox?...
[speaker003:] It's not easy but that's because the fox is not supposed to be captured.
[speaker001:] No, it's not easy to catch a fox is it? Why aren't they supposed to be captured?
[speaker003:] They're sly.
[speaker001:] They're sly.
[speaker003:] They're wild.
[speaker001:] They're wild, aren't they? So they don't come along and say, please catch me, and if you were trying to if you were trying to find a fox or a badger, what would be the- what would be the difficulty?
[speaker003:] They'd be hiding down their hole.
[speaker001:] They'd be hiding down their hole, wouldn't they? Or in the darkness somewhere. So they're what you call elusive, aren't they? And capturing wild animals is difficult because they're elusive. I think he's got a whole metaphor going in this poem between wild animals and things that exist freely and are difficult to find and poems which are things that exist and have their own life but they are also difficult to find. In what sense, are poems elusive? Elusive? If you are trying to write one.
[Lucy:] Only the right words to express the way you're feeling.
[speaker001:] So it's difficult to put them down on paper?
[Lucy:] Yes, cos like feelings and thoughts are hard to capture they're intricate and get them down
[speaker001:] As Woolf said. When they were looking at Woolf, erm wh the other group's a bit further on with Wolves than than you are but we were doing this morning about how Lily has difficulty painting her picture and erm Virginia Woolf says in her diary, I assure you all my novels are first rate before they were written. It was actually writing them that was the difficulty. I could see them, they were brilliant works of art in my imagination. So poems are elusive because you get the idea that actually working out your idea so it comes down on paper and it looks like a good poem and it says what you want to say and it doesn't spoil the effect etcetera so you've really captured your poem. Erm it's difficult isn't it? I think that's what it means. That poems are alive but they run away from you, you know and you have difficulty catching them like you have difficulty catching foxes. Anyway let's get back to the poem. So we've discovered quite a lot about it all really but erm in the second stanza he says, [reading] through the window I see no star. Something more near though deeper within the darkness is entering the loneliness []. So Lucy what do you think is entering the loneliness? At this point on your interpretation.
[Lucy:] Erm just like the the images, rather than it just all like being in his imagination I think it all coming to life around him.
[speaker001:] The images that he's going to use come to life. Is that what writing a poem is partly? Of the ideas coming alive for you?
[Lucy:] depends what sort of poem it is, this is a very sort of... image probing, sort of poem.
[speaker001:] Yes.
[Lucy:] Not all of them are. This is more like, he's trying to describe a scene to you or pictures to you, whether, whereas you can get poems that are just like emotional poems.
[speaker001:] .
[Lucy:] Well that depends.
[speaker001:] Yes.
[Lucy:] What sort of poem is
[speaker001:] Yes.
[Lucy:] But I think in this one that's the idea of that. To express a picture or an image that he's got.
[speaker001:] Yes. Do the rest of you agree with that? He's making you a visual image of the fox, isn't he? Only in the end it isn't an ordinary fox, it's a thought fox. We'll have to see what that means in a minute. Erm, have a look at the punctuation before we go on. How many full stops are there in this poem? and where are they?... three and where are they?
[speaker003:] one's in the first stanza and one in the last one.
[speaker001:] Yes. Where is the other one then?
[speaker003:] One's in the first stanza and there's two in the last one.
[speaker001:] Yeah. So is that odd? You've got the first stanza which is four lines, has got five lines has four lines can't see straight [LAUGHTER] the first stanza [] has one sentence and it ends at the end of the stanza but then you have one, two, three, four, five more stanzas and you don't get a full stop until the last stanza half way through. You have, you had twenty two lines or is it, I can't add up today. You had eighteen lines.
[speaker003:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] You have [LAUGHTER] eighteen lines [] without a full stop. So you get a full stop at the end of four lines. You get one after another eighteen lines and then one after another two. Now is that odd?
[Lucy:] yes.
[speaker001:] What would you expect in a poem Lucy then?...
[Lucy:] Dunno, it just doesn't seem to be much erm pattern
[speaker001:] So is there some reason, do you think, why you've got eighteen lines and no full stop?... What's he what's he describing in those eighteen lines? Somebody can do poem please.
[speaker003:] Er the fox.
[speaker001:] Yes.
[speaker003:] Maybe he just didn't like full stops
[speaker001:] I don't think that's the answer
[speaker003:] I don't mean like that. I mean like, you know, maybe you just didn't. Maybe it breaks up things. when you're thinking about things, it all just comes quickly.
[speaker001:] Now you can say it again more clearly please
[Stacey:] When you're thinking, right, things [LAUGHTER] come into your mind []. Erm, like they come really fast so you like just jot them down quickly erm without full stops
[speaker001:] Yes I think, I think the absence of the full stop is done on purpose but I think the kind of things you were suggesting, the reasons behind it. He's trying to say how to show how ideas come into your mind in a great rush and to co to convey their spontaneity. Erm and what is it that's come into his mind in a great rush in this part of the poem
[speaker003:] [cough].
[Elizabeth:] This image of a fox because it's erm moving so fast it's like really rapid
[speaker001:] Yes.
[Elizabeth:] and his own sort of vision of it as a creature. It's moving quite fast
[speaker001:] Yes.
[Elizabeth:] and he wants to keep it going it.
[speaker001:] Without breaking it, yes. So it's in fact in those eighteen lines that he describes the fox and brings it to life in the poem. In the images of the poem and he describes the fox as moving doesn't he. Stanza three, the fox's nose touch twig leaf and its footprints are set into the snow. It's actually walking. So although he can't see this fox. Although it's perhaps a totally imaginary fox, he's imagining the fox walking through the wood and coming towards his window. Coming towards his house and he describes it in stages, bringing it to life all the time. So it's a sense of continuous development, evolution of the animal which is, he wants continuity and that's why he hasn't put a full stop in. Also if you look at the way that the fox is described. What is the first thing we're told about it in the third stanza?
[speaker003:] Its nose.
[speaker001:] Its nose? The fox's
[speaker003:] Its nose, yes. Yeah.
[speaker001:] Now is it appropriate that we start with its nose?
[Lucy:] Yeah, be like the first thing er that it sees [LAUGHTER] that you see.
[speaker001:] First thing that you see.
[Lucy:] Well it's the first thing that comes.
[speaker003:] [LAUGHTER]..
[Lucy:] So if they ever get, this is erm a line and the fox is walking along, the first thing that's gonna pass this light will be its nose.
[speaker001:] That's right.
[Lucy:] See what I mean.
[speaker001:] Yeah, that's right. So it it precedes the rest of it if you are looking at the front of the fox it's erm why is a nose important to a wild animal?
[Lucy:] Sense of smell.
[speaker001:] Sense of smell. So if that and what I'm trying to say Lucy is I'm asking you serious questions. It's how the fox is being brought to life in the poem. A sense of smell is the first and primary thing for the animal because it gives it its sense of direction and it's very important and it goes gently cold, delicately as the dark snow. It's moving very carefully because it doesn't want to be detected. Now what's the next thing we get after the nose?
[speaker003:] the eyes
[speaker001:] The eyes. And that's appropriate too, isn't it? Because if you are actually thinking of it coming towards you head on
[speaker003:] [cough].
[speaker001:] then the eyes would be something you'd also confront at the beginning but they're equally important for the fox actually walking aren't they? Its nose, its eyes are the things with which it guides itself and then the walking is described, the footprints. So the whole thing is coming to life a bit.
[speaker003:] Yeah the detail's coming to life
[speaker001:] As though you were doing a sketch and you were sketching details in gradually. Lucy what were you going to say?
[Lucy:] In the third stanza why is there all those that now and again, now and now, and now
[speaker001:] That is what I was going to ask you Alright, let's look at this now. Just read this bit over again. [reading] Two eyes serve a movement that now and again now and now and now sets neat prints into the snow between trees []. What does it stand for?
[Lucy:] fox.
[speaker001:] can't hear that
[Lucy:] The actual movement of the fox.
[speaker003:] stopping and starting. So you can imagine it more yourself.
[speaker001:] It's actually approaching you
[speaker003:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] isn't it? Yes and also it's, it's one paw after another. The footprints, now and now and now and maybe not continuously as you were saying. Erm so the repetition is like the repetition of the prints in the snow. Erm, so it's a way of bringing it alive. It's almost mesmeric as well isn't it, this repetition of now, now, now between between the but as as you were saying, it's sketching all the details in so you, if you were sketching a fox, you know you begin somewhere and say you begin with the nose you've just got a little detail the nose and the eyes but eventually you've got to put the whole sketch in.
[speaker003:] But it's not very delicate movement like a fox, it's more sort of jerky.
[speaker001:] Well maybe that was the way I read it. Maybe it could be read more delicately.
[speaker003:] I mean it's not very graceful. It's not the image I would think of.
[speaker001:] Foxes are.
[speaker003:] . [cough]. foxes are [cough] I mean it's very erm... harmonious sort of walk. gliding
[speaker001:] Well perhaps it could be read in more gliding fashion now you see this punctuation thing here. Erm, not only have you got no full stops but in this stanza when he's talking about the fox moving you've got no commas at the end of the lines. Now what do you call that?... Anybody talk to you about that? What do you call it when you don't have punctuation at the end of a line?...
[speaker003:] [cough].
[speaker001:] Nobody knows? Well you call it a run-on line and you call it an enjambement line to give it the French term. What's the difference when you have a line that doesn't stop at the end of the line?
[speaker003:] we need.
[speaker001:] So it creates continuity in flow, doesn't it? and because he hasn't got any full stops you see. He doesn't even stop at the end of the stanza. Stanza three and now, runs immediately into stanza four. Set neat prints into the snow and the same with stanza four, are the body that is bold to come across clearings. You can't stop between the stanzas, can you? It's less usual to enjambe stanzas than it is to enjambe lines and it creates this continuous flow. This speed that talking about but I think it corresponds to the movement of the fox. The sense that it is all, with a kind of inevitability coming alive. More involved vividly so, so again I think this punctuation is done deliberately to make it merge continuously
[speaker003:] [sneeze].
[speaker001:] After the footprints, what do you then get in the description?... Erm, Laura, what comes after the footprints?
[Laura:] Erm the shadow. Shadow of the body.
[speaker001:] Yes, now this shows it must be his imagination, mustn't it? Because at night with no stars and moon couldn't be any shadows, could there? So why does he call it a shadow then?
[Laura:] Because it's sort of dark, his just to.
[speaker003:] .
[Laura:] It's not tangible.
[speaker001:] It's not tangible.
[speaker003:] [cough].
[speaker001:] Lucy. Any other reasons why it's a shadow?
[Lucy:] ... Well it's shy isn't it, so it's got to try to keep away. It's trying not to be seen in fact.
[speaker001:] But nevertheless it's bold in its way. The body bold to come across the clearings and at last the the fox is really there. It's not just its nose, it's not just its footprints. You can see the footprints without seeing the fox, can't you?... But there is the whole body in the clearing, the eye, a widening deepening greeness. So you've really confronted him now
[speaker003:] Is that still about the fox.
[speaker001:] Well what [cough] else would it be, do you think?
[speaker003:] Well it's just that I may be totally wrong but I just read it first when you read it first it's like its prey in the light if you see what I mean. Now we've just heard about the fox and it's coming across into the clearing, then an eye widening deepening greenness and talks about it coming about his own business till a sudden sharp hot stink of fox enters the dark hole of the head.
[speaker001:] So what which.
[speaker003:] it's like
[speaker001:] Sorry.
[speaker003:] I was just envisaging it being like a rabbit or something....
[speaker001:] Yes I see how you get the idea but what do the rest of you think of it?... Well you don't think of it obviously. not quite finished. Erm I suggest that it is the fox because we're told it has a sudden sharp hot stink the fox. So it's all part of the same sentence that makes it come into the head at that point. Now if the fox enters a hole but the hole that he enters is the head so what does that tell us about this fox?...
[speaker003:] It's an imaginary It's an imaginary
[speaker001:] It's an imaginary fox, yes and so when at the very end of the poem he says when he says the window is starless still the clock ticks the page is printed. What's happened, what does he mean?
[speaker003:] thoughts have stopped wandering
[speaker001:] Thoughts stop wandering. What's finished though?
[speaker003:] The poem. [cough].
[speaker001:] The poem, yes. So he's done a kind of conjuring trick here. He's written you a poem in which you might well think he was describing a fox outside his window but just at the point when the fox seems most real, it might be coming through the window or it might be going into its hole, he says that the hole that this fox lives in is his head. It's an imaginary fox and he suddenly says, I've finished describing now, here's your poem. The poem is what he was imagining. So it's this idea of capturing animals, a poem is like a wild animal and if you really conjure it up carefully.