PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Astonishingly virile and regional are these poems by a newcomer, an Englishman whose poetry was unanimously chosen out of 287 entries for the first publication award of the YMHA Poetry Contest, by a distinguished committee. In a brief introduction Marianne Moore says: Hughes' talent is unmistakable, the work has focus, is aglow with feeling, with conscience; sensibility is awake, embodied in appropriate diction . Add to this a gift for bold, uninhibited imagery, and a sense of savage satire, and you have a young talent of abundant gifts. If these poems are varied in subject matter, with no clearly defined tendency, this is a virtue rather than a fault of youth. Hughes shows equal skill in the lyric - the poem of mood- the satire. A welcome arrival on the scene. (Kirkus Reviews)
