In 1958, Ted Hughes met Leonard Baskin, an American artist who, to use Bob Duggan's term, seemed to be the poet's creative "soulmate." Baskin quickly grew close to Hughes and Plath, who were living and teaching in Massachusetts at the time. Although Hughes and Plath returned to England, the couple maintained ties with Baskin, who proved to be an important figure in their lives.
Baskin was born in New Jersey in 1933. Like Hughes, Baskin's artistic propensities emerged during his childhood. He attended New York University for Art and Architecture, and later traveled to Europe on a Guggenheim fellowship to study to the work of masters firsthand, including August Rodin. Baskin worked across a variety of media. He is most known for his sculptures and engravings. Like Hughes' poetry, Baskin's art explore themes of nature, darkness, and violence. While Hughes' poetry consistently uses concrete imagery, powerful sensory language, and active diction to explore the links between humanity and its natural, savage counterpart, Baskin's artwork engraved man's darkness upon his figure through a limited color palette and haunting imagery.
Throughout their friendship, Hughes and Baskin frequently collaborated on projects. On the British Library's American Collections blog, Carole Holden writes that "Baskin’s drawings should not be seen as mere illustrations to Hughes’ text—in fact, in a number of instances the drawings preceded and inspired the poems." Crow, perhaps Hughes most critically acclaimed work, resulted from Baskin's invitation. The collection, a narratively cohesive work that follows the life of a single character, Crow, extends from a series of Baskin's illustrations.
Hughes and Baskin's potent creative chemistry provoked Baskin's move to Devon, England with his family in 1974, so future collaborations with Hughes would be more feasible. Flowers and Insects: Some Birds and a Pair of Spiders, published in 1986, is one of the projects the pair completed during this time.
Why is it significant that we consider Baskin's illustrations for Flowers and Insects when analyzing a poem like "Big Poppy?" When a poet intentionally includes illustrations alongside his work, the accompanying images become indispensable features of the collection. Baskin's illustrations do more than enrich Flowers and Insects, Crow, and others: they embody a part of the work's meaning. Considering the role that metaphor, imagery, and symbolism play in "Big Poppy," the painting of a poppy flower, mirrored on the pages before and after the poem itself, requires an additional analysis.
In "Big Poppy," Hughes deploys concrete language and powerful imagery, but the metaphors he uses to describe the bee and the poppy require a degree of creative interpretation. The poppy Baskin illustrates is larger than life: thick, heavy strokes of red paint fill in the flower's broad petals, the weight the flower's stem must support. The stem is lithe, but appears strong and sturdy. Tiny hair-like tendrils that cover the stem create a sense of texture. A dark streak, the poppy's brewing pod, connects the stem to its head of petals. The flower gently leans to one side, as though it "sways towards August." While Baskin doesn't include a bee in the illustration, the flower's tousled petals appear as though the bee could be rustling inside. The fuzzy outline of a shadow in the poppy's center, which imbues the petals with depth, could also suggest the rapid motion of a bee beating its wings. Painted against a mustard colored and imperial purple canvas, the poppy appears regal. If we remember the poem's first line, which declares the poppy a "hot-eyed mafia queen," the illustration could be imagined as a portrait, depicting the flower in her prime, before her petals brown and decay.
