Perhaps not on a first date…

I’ve been slowly making my way through Elaine Feinstein’s highly engaging biography of Ted Hughes this past week. As I’m fortunate enough to own the Collected Poems of Hughes, I’ve been trying to read his poems in a kind of parallel chronology to the events of his life, which is proving deliciously satisfying. Today’s reading saw the introduction of Sylvia into Ted’s life with the sort of OTT drama that seems to only happen in biographies of creative types.

After spotting Sylvia at a Cambridge party and admiring her ‘flash’, Hughes quickly extricates himself from his date and flocks to Plath.  She plies him with flattery and the next thing they are drinking brandy and chit-chatting in the next room. Remembering his ditched girlfriend he excuses himself not before as Feinstein writes:

“he kissed her, ‘bang smash on the mouth, as she describes it in her journal, then ripped her hairband off and her favourite silver earrings. The journal entry continues with him ‘barking’ his intention to keep what he had taken, and kissing her neck. In response, Plath bit him so long and hard on his cheek that blood was running down his face when they returned to the other room.” (p48)

Hughes later described it as:

“as a swelling ring-moat of tooth-marks

that was to brand my face for the next month”

Yikes! Now that’s taking the term love-bite perhaps a little too literally…