telegraph wires

the text of the poem is on page 270 of your books

some introductory thoughts on what the poem is about

This poem was published in a collection called Wolfwatching in 1989; it had been previously published in a magazine in 1985.

Telegraph wires were a piece of communication technology, now obsolete: they carried basic messaging across the country. This sort of communication has now been replaced by the internet. Telegraph wires were carried across the country by poles, and were a common feature of England when Hughes was a child. Telegraph wires were replaced by telephone wires. So, this could be a poem about telegraph wires, phone-wires, or any such system of communication via wires.

Hughes presents the topic of communication in his poem - communication by telegraph wire is potentially an attractive subject for a poet, as the idea of special forms of communication, reaching far wider than the normal limits of human speech, has preoccupied poets over the centuries.

Characteristically, Hughes's poem focuses on telegraph wires on a 'lonely moor' - such moorland scenery recurs throughout Hughes's poetry. He was inspired by the Pennine moorland of his early childhood in West Yorkshire, as well as by Dartmoor in Devon. Moorland scenery in England is famously inhospitable, treeless, and subject to bad weather.

Telegraph wires enable communication: somehow they are 'alive' with human speech, with towns 'whispering' to other towns over the 'heather' of the moorland. This communication could be dreaded news: for example, in World War I, families were informed of the death of soldiers by telegram, a print-out of information carried by telegraph wires, and delivered to families by the postal system.

The double-rhyme of 'heather' and 'weather' in stanza 2 perhaps suggests some sort of coming together, like an echo or recognition. Rhyming couplets feature throughout the poem, though the number of syllables in each line varies from stanza to stanza, quite freely. This all seems to underline the idea of resonant communication, with aural effects.

There is a suggestion of some sort of musical instrument in stanza 3 - the combination of wires stretching across a landscape forms a kind of stringed instrument, which is 'picked up and played' by a bigger force. The music is an 'unearthly air', rather like those heard on Shakespeare's magic island in his play The Tempest. This could be music brought about by wind whistling through the wires.

Although music is featured in this poem, its effect is not positive, at least as far as human listeners are concerned: 'the ear hears, and withers'. This phrase line could suggest the devastating effect of bad news (brought to a listener by telegraph).

There's a suggestion of a kind of cosmic consciousness which is 'bowed' over the moorland, a bright face (the moon?) which 'draws out' of the wires sounds which 'empty human bones' - a strange idea of some sort of unnerving, weird sound, with a catastrophic effect on the listener.

Maybe the poem is suggesting some sort of natural process or interaction which may have negative on humans, even though the notion of communication between humans (facilitated by telegraph wires) is potentially a positive one?

Many readers think of those World War I telegrams bringing unwelcome and tragic news to families - in the light of that negative association, the 'music' of the telegraph wires is jangling and unwelcome, and thus the rather banal couplets would support that idea.

Think about the idea of the timeless endurance of the moorland and the bigger forces which are in play above it: what might this suggest about the human links which the telegraph wires facilitate?

You could also explore the extent to which this poem encourages us to think about the relation between humans and the technology we use - how far could you take this idea?

some creative writing to help you understand the poem more deeply

Why not write about some of the ways in which modern online communication enables us to connect with people over very long distances? What sort of poetic form would you choose to support a poem on this topic?

some other lovely poems in English about communication, music in the air, linkage by wires and related topics

The Eolian Harp * by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Pylons * by Stephen Spender

An interesting introduction * to the collection Wolfwatching, from which this poem comes.

A detailed analysis of the poem * by Dr Oliver Tearle, a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University, England.

Two teachers from Bristol Grammar School in England discuss the poem in this excellent podcast *.

photo

Moorland above Todmorden, West Yorkshire, England - photo by James Harding.

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