The Thought-Fox

     One particular poem by Ted Hughes that invoked a strong response from me was, ironically, the very first poem in his book Selected Poems 1957-1994, "The Thought Fox."
     When I first read this poem, I immediately was given the image of how a writer gains an idea, or the process of the writing. Just the title in itself, "The Thought-Fox," reminded me of the old sentence: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. It's often used in typography, due to the fact that it contains every letter of the english alphabet, and I recall learning the sentence back in elementary school when my teacher began teaching us how to read more complex sentences. This image, brought about through the title of Hughes' poem, immediately caused me to begin reading the poem through the lens of the process of writing and reading.

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:

Something else is alive

Beside the clock's loneliness

And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:

Something more near

Though deeper within darkness

Is entering the loneliness:

     The line "beside the clock's loneliness" reminds me of the stereotypical life of a writer, where it's implied that a writer's life is a lonely, solitary endeavour. Following that, "Through the window I see no star," leans to the idea that, if we think of a star as a great idea, a writer doesn't always see a great idea on the horizon when they first begin the process of writing. 

Cold, delicately as the dark snow

A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;

Two eyes serve a movement, that now

And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow

Between trees, and warily a lame

Shadow lags by stump and in hollow

Of a body that is bold to come

     From this point on, we have the metaphor of an idea and writing as an animal--of the fox. The second line of the third stanza, "a fox's nose touches twig, leaf" speaks to the idea of touching the initial idea--the experimentation of a writer with this new idea. After this, "sets neat prints into the snow" shows the beginning of the draft, the first "neat prints" on the page. And finally, "of a body that is bold to come" shows that an author eventually lets the ideas come bolding forth, streaming from their fingers or pen like an animal running through the snow.

Across clearings, an eye,

A widening deepening greenness,

Brilliantly, concentratedly,

Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox

It enters the dark hole of the head.

The window is starless still; the clock ticks,

The page is printed.

    The first stanza of this last section continues the idea of running with an idea, of how the idea seems to "come about its own business" and bring a whole new life to the idea the writer began with. And finally, the last stanza wraps up the writing process. "It enters the dark hole of the head" shows the idea finally coming to life, continueing seemingly by itself. And, in a great circular motion of life--and also writing--the poem ends the way it started: "The window is starless still; the clock ticks." Like the life of a writer I spoke about above, the writer starts and finishes their process alone, with just a spark of an idea that lites, bellows, and blows out. Like Hughes writes, "the page is printed." 

     I love this idea of "The Thought-Fox" as the process of writing. While it still gives a nod to Hughes' preoccupation with animals and their animalistic qualities, it transfers that animalistic nature to the process of writing. Many people think of the writing process as something that takes a lot of work, that takes a good deal of intense thought and revision. However, I like to believe that in each of us, there is a specific--almost animalistic--process we take toward writing. It's the kind of instinct we have, such as a fox hunting in the woods, that brings us closer and closer to our ideas. And the fact that Hughes can capture the entirety of that idea just in six stanzas on the first page of his book of poems is incredible.