{"id":436,"date":"2019-11-16T20:45:19","date_gmt":"2019-11-17T04:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/?p=436"},"modified":"2020-07-12T13:08:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-12T20:08:12","slug":"me-and-ted-hughes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/me-and-ted-hughes\/","title":{"rendered":"Me & Ted Hughes at the Festival of Authors in Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>October 21, 1983. Toronto. At 644 Church Street, just off Bloor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fall settles in. A crisp, chilly, windy day. Leaves whirl, scatter in circles. I am\u00a0 living in a tiny two bedroom apartment on Church Street in Toronto, just off Bloor, with my lover, Gord Halloran, for whom I have left my first marriage, my friends, my family and my country. I am so full with pregnancy, so ready to give birth to our love child. No\u00a0 work permit here in Canada where I\u2019m still becoming more aware of myopic American-ness. In the meantime, I am a fitness instructor at a trendy workout studio in Yorkville.<\/p>\n

Here I am introduced to Canadian legend, Karen Kain, who becomes an occassional student in my classes while she recoveres from an injury. I teach daily, waiting for legal status and the freedom to work and get paid. My lover\u2019s divorce — from a fourteen year marriage in Canada — has yet to come through from California. That\u2019s where we met and fell in love – San Francisco.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And he\u2019s working on an oil painting of the Toronto Stock Exchange and directing a show we are producing at the Adelaide Court Theatre: the Canadian premiere of \u201cLetters Home<\/em><\/strong>\u201d. It\u2019s a two-hander which chronicles, in letters, the relationships between American poet Sylvia Plath,and her mother, Aurelia. The playwright is Rose Leiman Goldemberg.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We had decided to do the show as my Toronto debut. Since we were producers, I didn\u2019t need a work permit to be hired, and I\u2019d be quite pregnant when the show opened. I wasn\u2019t very big, maybe I could pull it off: Sylvia Plath is pregnant in some parts of the play.<\/p>\n

Letters Home<\/em><\/strong> enjoyed a three week run, healthy audiences and reviews in The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star,\u00a0 Now Magazine<\/em>,<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

U of Ts\u2019 The Newspaper<\/em> and York University\u2019s Excalibur<\/em>. The Newspaper<\/em>\u2019s headline: Letters Home offers more than a biography<\/em><\/strong>, The Excalibur: Plath\u2019s Letters Read Well.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Gina Mallet, of The Toronto Star<\/em> saw the opening. We did an exhausting rehearsal that day. Due to lack of experience, I didn\u2019t estimate how my pregnancy would affect my energy requirements. By the evening\u2019s performance, I had hit the wall, and walked through opening night without an ounce of emotion. My co-star, Patty Carole Brown, had trouble remembering her lines. This was a major frustration throughout the run of the show because in her mistaking one line for another, it was difficult to know how to salvage the scene. Gina Mallet put it in writing, it hurt to agree with her. The most basic of an actor\u2019s responsibilities is to learn your lines! I felt empathy for Patty as her verbal hesitation was probably due to her age; and we will all be there soon enough. But I was so humiliated by her review that I clipped out the headline, and only saved the good parts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We had another chance the second night: Ray Conologue reviewed for The Globe and Mail.<\/em> My energy rallied but we weren\u2019t to be blessed:\u00a0 Ray Conologue spent more time scribbling clever notes to himself than watching the show. The headline to his review,\u00a0 complete with several photos, was published across the entire country: Tribute to Plath Too Reverential to be Credible. <\/em><\/strong>He used the word feminist anthem<\/em><\/strong> in the first paragraph, then\u00a0 proceeded to throw stones at it. I still recall one paragraph from his review: \u201cHicks\u2019 Plath was quite offputting at first, both because of the gushy preppy tone of her college letters and because of Hicks\u2019 rather gratutitous bopping around, as if the budding poet combined aerobics with iambics. .\u00a0 .\u201d\u00a0 Apparently Conologue hadn\u2019t noticed my very obvious physical condition. Well, maybe it was the aerobics classes I was still teaching!<\/p>\n

My fascination with the Plath\/Hughes legend\u00a0 was by this time, huge. I had every poem Sylvia Plath wrote, and many editions of Ted\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

I owned<\/em> Sylvia Plath by the play\u2019s closing performance, and her tragic suicide weighed heavily on me. I felt her angst upon learning that her husband was having an affair with another woman. At the time of her death in February 1963, Ted Hughes\u2019 career was firmly established, Sylvia\u2019s was just beginning to take off.<\/p>\n

What could she have seen in the world before THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE was published? What happened to make this intelligent, passionate woman with a child under 3 and another just a year old,\u00a0 during one of England\u2019s coldest winters on record, put a towel in the space under her kitchen door, put her head in the oven and turn the gas on?<\/p>\n

In my journal, <\/em><\/strong>it says that on October 21st, Gord went down to City Hall to get our marriage license as his divorce papers had finally arrived the day before.<\/p>\n

On October 22nd, 1983, just a week after Letters Home <\/em><\/strong>closed, The Fifth Annual International Festival of Authors hosted 25 writers from all over the world at Toronto\u2019s Harbourfront. On Sunday, the last day of the festival. Ted Hughes, England\u2019s Poet Laureate, Sylvia\u2019s ex-husband and lover, was the featured guest.<\/p>\n

We were down to our last pennies. Gord\u2019s savings had been seriously depleted with the production of this play. Reluctantly, his red Mustang convertible and a clunky old blue truck were put up for sale in the want ads, and Gord arranged to sell his cherished Kathe Kollewitz print to a dealer in San Francisco. But, on October 22nd, there had been no sales, no income from our sacrifices. We were going to be parents, and we had no money for diapers.<\/p>\n

I weighed the cost of the tickets. But I had just spent five months of my life studying both Ted and Sylvia, gazing at photos of them in love, reading their poetry, Sylvia\u2019s novel, The Bell Jar<\/em><\/strong>, wondering. Speaking to an Author\u2019s Festival organizer, I heard that Hughes had been dogged by overeager Plath fans, who blamed Ted for Sylvia\u2019s suicide. Sometimes they showed up at the airport with placards, shouting at him. Everyone was hoping for all of us in Canada to recognize his legend-ness and behave appropriately.\u00a0 How could I miss this?<\/p>\n

There would be people in the audience who had seen me in Letters Home<\/em><\/strong>, but I just wanted to be a fly on the wall, free to gape and wonder.\u00a0 I wanted to know the answers I could only discover by meeting him: what could possibly have been so charming about him? Sylvia was a smart, creative woman. How could he have won her heart, then tossed it aside so carelessly?<\/p>\n

Sitting at the back of the stuffed-to-capacity auditorium, I listened with show-me arms folded to the accented, apologetic voice of this man reading absolutely spellbinding poems about a sheep farmer! Astonished and thoroughly charmed, I was also cautious: the room was breathing<\/em> with his every pause and I was vehemently Anti-Idol, in spite of my obsession. Afterwards, queues wound around the room for his autograph. I\u00a0 immediately attracted and repelled. I lingered — as a voyeur.<\/p>\n

In one of my American moments,\u00a0 I went right up to the front of autograph the line, and asked him if he wanted a beer. Why hadn\u2019t anyone thought of that? He looked at me gratefully. Of course he wanted a beer! Gord made his way through the absolutely stuffed bar to buy it, and when we delivered it, I pulled up a chair and sat next to Ted Hughes, as he signed books into the night.<\/p>\n

A photographer from the Kingston Standard, who knew I had played the part of Sylvia in Letters Home,<\/em><\/strong> snapped our photograph together and it was published the next day. We talked. Ted Hughes wrote a poem to me on the back of my ticket.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then, we all went home. Gord and I got married the following Saturday.<\/p>\n

Later, I wrote the poem below, which I sent to Ted Hughes\u00a0 with a copy of the newspaper article which bore our photograph, in care of his publisher.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I also sent the poem to Rose Leiman Goldemberg, the playwright who had written LETTERS HOME, and who had a close relationship with Sylvia\u2019s mother.\u00a0I never heard from Ted Hughes, but Rose later told me that Sylvia\u2019s mother, Aurelia had read the poem and quite liked it. The poem:<\/p>\n

So, <\/strong><\/p>\n

this is <\/strong><\/p>\n

Ted Hughes<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cA large, hulking, healthy Adam\u201d<\/p>\n

she said<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ha!<\/p>\n

A stoop-shouldered shuffler<\/p>\n

a baggy panted Down-looker:<\/p>\n

chin crooked in his neck<\/p>\n

pointed nose cocked sideways.<\/p>\n

That hair! Straight grey, greasy fronds<\/p>\n

spring from his forehead<\/p>\n

into those wide eyes<\/p>\n

softly laughing at the wrinkled edges;<\/p>\n

set against a wiskery grey-bearded<\/p>\n

chin.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not that Big,<\/p>\n

Hulking, Huge Whatever<\/p>\n

She<\/em><\/strong> described:<\/p>\n

he\u2019s in his Fifties!<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a voice like the thunder of God,\u201d<\/p>\n

she said<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I hear Soft, apologizing<\/p>\n

warm-accented timbre<\/p>\n

rumbling, rising and bellowing<\/p>\n

in the passionate heat<\/p>\n

of his Wild Word poems<\/p>\n

A singer, story-teller<\/p>\n

Weaving magnets<\/p>\n

before gullible,<\/p>\n

gaping faces<\/p>\n

We sit on seat\u2019s edge<\/p>\n

In the crowded stillness<\/p>\n

a pin drop<\/p>\n

We, gasping for air<\/p>\n

forget to clap<\/p>\n

His head hangs<\/p>\n

like Christ on the cross<\/p>\n

He ends the rushing, bleeding images<\/p>\n

Tricks us,<\/p>\n

starts again!<\/p>\n

Like a prayer!<\/p>\n

So this<\/p>\n

is Mellowed<\/p>\n

This<\/p>\n

Ted Hughes.<\/p>\n

Humble, clumsy-gaited<\/p>\n

embarassed and amused<\/p>\n

by the adulating bodies<\/p>\n

A sea washes Him<\/p>\n

to a table to sit.<\/p>\n

Dry, condemned man<\/p>\n

up-glances sideways<\/p>\n

Mischief darts<\/p>\n

under the ferns<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a\u00a0 rascal!<\/p>\n

He taunts his captors<\/p>\n

gleefully signing his punishment<\/p>\n

His name, Ted Hughes.<\/p>\n

Big, black<\/p>\n

sloppy fountain of ink<\/p>\n

eagerly spoils<\/p>\n

white parchment<\/p>\n

virgin book<\/p>\n

He hardly sees their faces<\/p>\n

but smiles<\/p>\n

seductive, shy<\/p>\n

sly<\/p>\n

charming<\/p>\n

disarming<\/p>\n

Ted Hughes.<\/p>\n

My rabbit heartbeat<\/p>\n

Adrenalin drugged<\/p>\n

insane!<\/p>\n

I plot, full of courage<\/p>\n

Book toting, ticket-toting,<\/p>\n

program-toting ants<\/p>\n

inch line behind him<\/p>\n

I blurt forward<\/p>\n

squashing a knat-sychopant<\/p>\n

at His side<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want a drink?\u201d<\/p>\n

I gasp, hoping<\/p>\n

He nods,\u201dYes!\u201d<\/p>\n

Triumphant! I paw the crowd<\/p>\n

Tingling thrilled<\/p>\n

The squirming insects<\/p>\n

clutch forward<\/p>\n

a mass of thirsty limbs<\/p>\n

Gord! co-conspirator<\/p>\n

lover, director, psst!<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants a beer!\u201d<\/p>\n

A wink, and tumbling<\/p>\n

fumbling for the sparkling fizzy<\/p>\n

my lover pays and gets.<\/p>\n

Cunning spiders, we<\/p>\n

tiptoe, web and circle our prey<\/p>\n

Beer. Here!<\/p>\n

Jailbird smiles, grateful.<\/p>\n

And we, full-cheeked<\/p>\n

Cheshire cats<\/p>\n

share the mouse<\/p>\n

we chew<\/p>\n

A buzzing bumblee bee<\/p>\n

spies me<\/p>\n

the pretend Sylvia<\/p>\n

as Prisoner spoils another book<\/p>\n

\u201cYou, bzzzzzz! Your last production . . .<\/p>\n

bzzzzz! wonderful!\u201d<\/p>\n

Big bellied arachnid Recoils.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t! I\u2019m not her!\u201d<\/p>\n

I scramble away safely<\/p>\n

lest he discover me for the fraud<\/p>\n

I am<\/p>\n

Ted Ted scribble scribbles<\/p>\n

more play comments<\/p>\n

from a tall grasshopper<\/p>\n

and someone is pointing at me<\/p>\n

from across the room<\/p>\n

my stomach knots<\/p>\n

I spin the web<\/p>\n

Mingle in the milling crowd<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease?\u201d I ask, \u201c A photograph?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMe and He? Forgot my flash!<\/p>\n

Photographer frowns, I beg<\/p>\n

Me The actress, He The Legend . . .<\/p>\n

Camera bearer scoots<\/p>\n

to smug fat Event Official beetle.<\/p>\n

Barrel belly Panic here!<\/p>\n

remembering our phone chat<\/p>\n

to him I was a Plath-fly<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t!\u00a0 I\u2019m not!\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally!<\/p>\n

WE: Me and He<\/p>\n

exactly<\/p>\n

are a picture<\/p>\n

The Legend leans to me<\/p>\n

those crinkling conspirators<\/p>\n

lurking impishly at the edges<\/p>\n

of His eyes,\u00a0 His mouth<\/p>\n

Kingston photo-man poises<\/p>\n

his lens<\/p>\n

and in that moment<\/p>\n

HE, the famous English poet<\/p>\n

my fantasy husband<\/p>\n

shrinks away from Me<\/p>\n

the pretend the secret Sylvia<\/p>\n

He stiffens, somber:<\/p>\n

carefully protecting<\/p>\n

His Offspring Image<\/p>\n

Ted Hughes.<\/p>\n

Flash! It\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

The hulking Adam glows again.<\/p>\n

Night thins, crowd wearys<\/p>\n

A full-mouth fat lipped blonde<\/p>\n

thrusts a well-worn lipstick pen<\/p>\n

into His hand<\/p>\n

We Bask in embarassment as<\/p>\n

The Captured rapes<\/p>\n

another creamy page<\/p>\n

drawing a heart<\/p>\n

above undying words to her<\/p>\n

She waves, twitters,<\/p>\n

breathes on Him, touches his hand<\/p>\n

totters<\/p>\n

Listening, uncomfortable<\/p>\n

we all laugh.<\/p>\n

So finally it\u2019s tired, we\u2019re late,<\/p>\n

The witching hour<\/p>\n

I shrink, Becoming ant<\/p>\n

Empty handed<\/p>\n

I fumble pleas<\/p>\n

ardent Catholics pray to Jesus<\/p>\n

Prisoner smiles at me<\/p>\n

yet another insect<\/p>\n

his broad wedding-ringed hand<\/p>\n

scribbling quick in wet ink<\/p>\n

on my tickets<\/p>\n

a poem\u00a0 to me:<\/p>\n

For Caitlin who brought<\/p>\n

me a beer when everybody<\/p>\n

else only wanted<\/p>\n

a signature here<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We (1) Ted Hughes (2) Ted Hughes<\/p>\n

(3) Ted Hughes<\/p>\n

(4) His other<\/p>\n

self Ted Hughes<\/p>\n

(5) His subsidiary<\/p>\n

Ted Hughes<\/p>\n

(6) Id, Ego, Superego<\/p>\n

Ted, Ed Edward<\/p>\n

Hughes.<\/p>\n

I am an actress<\/p>\n

too young, at age nine<\/p>\n

to have saved her<\/p>\n

and I left my husband<\/p>\n

for another lover<\/p>\n

so I am like Him, too<\/p>\n

I Became her<\/p>\n

these last three weeks<\/p>\n

I learned two, lived two<\/p>\n

hours of their lives<\/p>\n

and one-sided at that<\/p>\n

but my fantasy<\/p>\n

makes me feel<\/p>\n

I hold them in my hand<\/p>\n

as all no doubt do<\/p>\n

who read His words<\/p>\n

Her life<\/p>\n

and wonder:<\/p>\n

Who suffered most?<\/em><\/p>\n

________________________________________________________________ <\/em><\/p>\n

In 1998, Gord and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. We had just finished a tour of my play SINGING THE BONES to England and Sweden. We\u2019d received many standing ovations from audiences in five countries. Our last production took place in the southwest of England, the beautiful county of Devon, where Ted Hughes made his home. While we were there, just down the road in North Tawton, unknown to us, England\u2019s poet laureate was fighting his last against cancer. He had recently published a tribute to Sylvia Plath.\u00a0 On October 28th, 1998 almost 15 years to the day after I met him, and a little more than week after our show closed in Devon, we read the news of Ted Hughes\u2019 death in the Herald Tribune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 21, 1983. Toronto. At 644 Church Street, just off Bloor. Fall settles in. A crisp, chilly, windy day. Leaves whirl, scatter in circles. I am\u00a0 living in a tiny two bedroom apartment on Church Street in Toronto, just off Bloor, with my lover, Gord Halloran, for whom I have left my first marriage, my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[130,135,132,129,133,127,128,134,136,131],"class_list":["post-436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-fiction","tag-130","tag-adelaide-court-theatre-1983","tag-canadian-debut-of-letters-home","tag-international-festival-of-authors","tag-play-about-sylvia-plath","tag-poet-laureate-of-england-ted-hughes","tag-sylvia-plath","tag-sylvia-plath-ted-hughes-in-letters-home","tag-ted-hughes-poem-for-a-beer","tag-ted-hughes-visits-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4482,"href":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions\/4482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caitlinhicks.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}