This anniversary edition celebrates fifty years since the original publication of Crow (1970) - the vital, shape-shifting collection
by Ted Hughes. Its context, including the integral role of the American artist Leonard Baskin and the significance of Hughes- own lived tragedies, is illuminated in a new foreword by Marina Warner, as is the influence of ancient forms, legends and beliefs. The result underscores the work-s rough music and organic energy, as we encounter the enigmatic, unforgettable, -hulking, metamorphic beast-bird- itself.
''These scraps, spoken by a crow, took poetry to a new beginning. They are the bones of poems - made of mere lines: rude, surreal, gleeful, desolate poems - which for all their bleakness transmit a flash of hope. I would exchange much of English literature for their dark courage.'' Alice Oswald
