'Ted Hughes: Dreams as Deep as England', the seventh international conference devoted to the poet’s work, was held at Sheffield University from 9-12 September 2015, and hosted by the University’s School of English; the organising committee was chaired by Neil Roberts, to whom particular thanks are due.
Sixty delegates assembled for three fascinating days of parallel sessions of papers on many aspects of Hughes’s writing. Highlights included a poetry reading by Simon Armitage, a keynote lecture by Seamus Perry on ‘Hughes’ Urbanity’, and a conversation with Jonathan Bate about his book Ted Hughes: the Unauthorised Life, published in October by HarperCollins. Steve Ely, author of Made in Mexborough: Ted Hughes’s South Yorkshire, led a tour for delegates of the places and landscapes where Hughes lived from the age of eight to twenty-one, and where he became a poet.
The next two issues of the Ted Hughes Society Journal, to be published in January and July 2016, will include a selection of papers from the Sheffield Conference and reviews of recent publications. The journal welcomes contributions on any aspect of Hughes’s life and work; authors of papers are invited to consult the journal’s submission guidelines.