"Anniversary" is an autobiographical poem by the English poet Ted Hughes that elegizes his mother, Edith, who died in 1969. On the anniversary of her death, Hughes envisions his mother surrounded by "feathers of flame" walking alongside her sister, Miriam, who died many years earlier. As they move through a kind of afterlife, Edith shares memories of her life and family. She relates how much she cherished her children, but Hughes also reveals that she favored his older brother and that her love could sometimes be a burden. Even as he honors his mother, Hughes wrestles throughout the poem with resentment, grief, and guilt about their relationship. "Anniversary" was written sometime in the early 1990s, but the poem remained uncollected until Hughes published New and Selected Poems, 1957-1994 in 1995.

• Read the full text of “Anniversary”

• “Anniversary” Summary

• “Anniversary” Themes

  • 

    Grief, Relationships, and Memory

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-17
    • Lines 30-58
  • 

    Maternal Love, Worry, and Resentment

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-5
    • Lines 15-47
    • Lines 50-58
  • 

    The Cosmic Cycles of Life and Death

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-2
    • Lines 7-14
    • Lines 48-49

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Anniversary”

  • Lines 1-5

    My mother in ...
    ... there they are.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 6-10

    She is now ...
    ... in their orbits.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 10-14

    The work of ...
    ... in their feathers.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 15-19

    My mother is ...
    ... from the reservoir.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 20-24

    And that is ...
    ... on the altar.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 24-29

    And these ...
    ... the third time.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 29-33

    She laughs ...
    ... all she missed.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 33-37

    Now my mother ...
    ... to wear best."

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 37-42

    And: "Much of ...
    ... Look."

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 43-48

    And they pause, ...
    ... flame beside her.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 49-52

    Their feathers throb ...
    ... this for her.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 53-58

    She is using ...
    ... think me him.

    

    

    

    

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• “Anniversary” Symbols

  • 

    The Pen

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 20-24: “And that is the horse on which I galloped / Through the brick wall / And out over the heather simply / To bring him a new pen. This is the pen / I laid on the altar.”

• “Anniversary” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Consonance

    

    

    

    

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    Where consonance appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “feathers,” “flame”
    • Line 2: “Thirteenth”
    • Line 3: “sister,” “lift”
    • Line 4: “torn,” “brother,” “jotted”
    • Line 5: “today,” “there,” “they”
    • Line 7: “Sunday”
    • Line 8: “everlasting,” “strolling”
    • Line 9: “Listening,” “larks”
    • Line 10: “cosmos”
    • Line 11: “Creation”
    • Line 13: “Pulses,” “flares,” “shudders,” “fades”
    • Line 14: “Like,” “Lights,” “feathers”
    • Line 17: “Down,” “deep,” “woodland”
    • Line 18: “dark,” “dress”
    • Line 19: “dragged”
    • Line 25: “mass,” “marriages”
    • Line 26: “was,” “once,” “guest,” “suddenly”
    • Line 27: “She,” “scattering,” “coals,” “fingers”
    • Line 28: “find,” “fallen”
    • Line 29: “For,” “laughs”
    • Line 30: “Helplessly,” “weeps”
    • Line 38: “was,” “simply,” “sitting,” “window”
    • Line 39: “Watching”
    • Line 40: “Wonderful,” “was”
    • Line 41: “Knowing,” “somewhere”
    • Line 46: “skin”
    • Line 47: “So,” “strangely,” “olive”
    • Line 49: “softly,” “iridescent”
    • Line 50: “face,” “glistening”

  • Caesura

    

    

    

    

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    Where caesura appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “taller. Every”
    • Line 3: “Miriam. I”
    • Line 5: “today"—and”
    • Line 8: “everlasting, they”
    • Line 10: “orbits. The”
    • Line 13: “flares, shudders”
    • Line 16: “life, which,” “mine. Her,” “comes, piping”
    • Line 18: “water-line, dark,” “dress, look”
    • Line 23: “pen. This”
    • Line 24: “altar. And”
    • Line 26: “guest." Then”
    • Line 29: “time. She”
    • Line 30: “weeps. Miriam”
    • Line 33: “missed. Now”
    • Line 35: “shoes, or”
    • Line 36: “thing," she”
    • Line 37: “best." And: "Much”
    • Line 39: “horizon. Truly”
    • Line 40: “was, day”
    • Line 41: “somewhere. It”
    • Line 43: “pause, on”
    • Line 44: “dew. They”
    • Line 45: “mother, darker”
    • Line 46: “hair, her”
    • Line 52: “me. I”
    • Line 54: “brother, through”
    • Line 57: “her, and”

  • Imagery

    

    

    

    

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    Where imagery appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-2: “My mother in her feathers of flame / Grows taller.”
    • Line 4: “The torn-off diary page”
    • Lines 9-10: “Listening to the larks / Ringing in their orbits.”
    • Lines 13-14: “Pulses and flares, shudders and fades / Like the Northern Lights in their feathers.”
    • Lines 16-17: “Her voice comes, piping, / Down a deep gorge of woodland echoes:”
    • Line 27: “She is scattering the red coals with her fingers”
    • Lines 43-44: “the brink / Of the starry dew.”
    • Lines 45-50: “darker with her life, / Her Red Indian hair, her skin / So strangely olive and other-worldly, / Miriam now sheer flame beside her. / Their feathers throb softly, iridescent. / My mother's face is glistening”

  • Simile

    

    

    

    

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    Where simile appears in the poem:

    • Line 14: “Like the Northern Lights in their feathers.”
    • Line 35: “Like pairs of shoes, or one dress after another”
    • Lines 50-52: “My mother's face is glistening / As if she held it into the skyline wind / Looking towards me.”
    • Line 55: “As if I were the shadow cast by this approach.”

  • Metaphor

    

    

    

    

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    Where metaphor appears in the poem:

    • Lines 7-8: “In the perpetual Sunday Morning / Of everlasting,”
    • Line 34: “Shows her the rosary prayers of unending worry,”
    • Lines 53-54: “She is using me to tune finer / Her weeping love for my brother, through mine,”

• “Anniversary” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Diary page
  • Jotted
  • Larks
  • Cosmos
  • Anti-matter
  • Northern Lights
  • Piping
  • Gorge
  • Heather
  • Madonna-like
  • Rosary prayers
  • Brink
  • Sheer
  • (Location in poem: Lines 3-4: “I lift / The torn-off diary page”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Anniversary”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Anniversary” Speaker

• “Anniversary” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Anniversary”

• More “Anniversary” Resources

  • External Resources

    • Gerald Hughes's Obituary — An obituary for Ted Hughes's older brother, which sheds light on the Hughes's family life and the relationship between the rival siblings.

    • More About Ted Hughes — A short overview of Ted Hughes's life and work via the Academy of American Poets.

    • The Art of Poetry with Ted Hughes — An interview with the poet which appeared in The Paris Review shortly after the publication of "Anniversary."    

    • Portraits of Ted Hughes — The National Portrait Gallery offers a variety of looks at the poet throughout his career.    

    • Ted Hughes's Obituary — The New York Times's 1998 obituary of Hughes explores the poet's controversial life and career.

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by Ted Hughes

    • A Memory

    • A Picture of Otto

    • Bayonet Charge

    • Cat and Mouse

    • Football at Slack

    • Fulbright Scholars

    • Full Moon and Little Frieda

    • Hawk Roosting

    • Relic

    • Roe-Deer

    • Snowdrop

    • Telegraph Wires

    • The Harvest Moon

    • The Horses

    • The Jaguar

    • The Other

    • The Shot

    • The Thought Fox

    • Wind

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