Ted Hughes and Devon. Devon Riviera. Environmentalist. Back to the seaside!

Are you missing the seaside? Can't wait for the crowds to return? Ted Hughes reminds us of the environmental issues and the sea pollution.

Devon Riviera

https://wordandsilence.com/2019/03/20/ted-hughes-devon-riviera-poem/

In her book, "Ted Hughes: Environmentalist and Ecopoet", Yvonne Reddick writes of  the poem exposing "the turpitude of a coastline thronged with holiday-makers whose waste overwhelms the Torridge Estuary".

Not only that...

"Decent couples, rigid with loneliness,
Expose themselves
Intermittently, with buttoned faces,
To the furnace interiors of fun-halls".


Ted Hughes Poetry Trail

https://www.visitsouthdevon.co.uk/things-to-do/ted-hughes-poetry-trail-p450763


In another poem, "Postcard from Torquay", Hughes writes on a related theme. He ends the poem referring to the "tourist effluent".

Warning - the poem exhibits unfortunate xenophobic prejudice.

Hughes reminds me in these poems of John Fowles writing about "the grockles" taking over Lyme Regis in Dorset. If it wasn't the 'foreigners', it was the 'grockles' they wanted to criticise.

Have a good summer! But where will we find a warm welcome?