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A “treasure trove” of invisible poems and letters by Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney and artist Barrie Cooke revealed the depth of a close three-way friendship that a Cambridge academic described as a “rough, wild equivalent of the Bloomsbury group. “.
Cooke, who died in 2014, was one of Ireland’s leading Expressionist artists and an avid fisherman. Fellow fishing enthusiast Mark Wormald, an English fellow at Pembroke College Cambridge, came across his name while reading Hughes’ unpublished fishing journals at the British Library. He visited Cooke in Ireland and discovered the close friendship between the three men.
“Barrie told me that ‘outside of Seamus’ family, I am the closest man to Seamus alive.’ And he said, “Ted and I have fishing in common, and Seamus and I have art and mud in common,” Wormald said.
The academician visited Cooke again years later, when the artist had developed dementia, and read to him from Hughes’ fishing diary, written in February 1980, which detailed the time when the graduate poet landed his first salmon. Irish.
“The diary ended:” It’s the most beautiful fish I’ve ever seen, Barrie said. “And Barrie, who had listened in raptures, said,” I said it, Mark. “And then she said,” She’d like to see the letters? “said Wormald.
Cooke showed him an old cardboard box stuffed with “wonderfully expressive letters,” photographs showing the affection the three men had for each other, and 85 poems by Hughes and Heaney, some unpublished; a collection that was believed to have been lost and reveals the direct influence Cooke had on the work of the two poets.
In a letter from Heaney in March 1972, written as he was deciding to embark on a life as a freelance writer, a friend of his: “Your trust in us has engendered self-confidence and it is strange how the secret will to change flourished after the walk that morning. to Luggala and then, more irresistibly, in the kitchen on Saturday night when we ate the pike.
There were 25 letters from Hughes, written over 30 years; a poem by Hughes entitled Trenchford on Dartmoor, written for Cooke and his then partner Jean Valentine; and a sketch by Hughes entitled The Dagda Meets the Morrigu on the Unshin Near Ballinlig, a retelling of a fisherman from Irish mythology.
When Hughes spent time with Cooke, his head and heart turned “Irish” towards “freedom and flow,” he wrote; finding an “inner freedom” that made him and his son Nick “completely happy,” as he told Heaney.
“For Ted Hughes, tortured soul, controversial figure, finding that complete happiness is quite remarkable,” said Wormald.
The friendship between the three men was already known: Heaney and Hughes worked together, while Cooke is credited for suggesting and illustrating Hughes’ poem The Great Irish Pike. But the collection also contains “wild” images of Hughes Crow’s work, and shows that their collaboration dates back to the early 1960s.
“For both Heaney and Hughes, evasiveness was a very significant principle of their work and they needed to protect their privacy. They regarded Barrie as a kind of secret friend … a devoted art specimen, and from that they drew enormous strength. And they knew it was basically under the radar, ”said Wormald, who co-edited the editions of Hughes’ work and whose book The Catch: Fishing for Ted Hughes is due to be published in 2021.
“The tenderness of the letters between these men takes my breath away and transforms what we know about their work and their personal life. Hughes emerges as an absolutely devoted father, a wonderfully generous friend, and someone who has lived and breathed nature through fishing.. And Cooke’s influence on Heaney, as an artist fully devoted to the natural and mythological history of Irish waters, has been real and lasting, as has the nourishment Heaney has drawn from their friendship. “
Cooke’s daughters gave Pembroke College, Hughes’ alma mater, the first option to acquire the collection.
In a Cambridge University video about the acquisition, the academic describes the “deep triangular friendship” as “a rough, savage equivalent of the Bloomsbury group, but completely unrecognized.”
Pembroke College will now catalog and curate the collection in its library, with a series of exhibitions to follow.
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