Frieda Hughes Journalist Profile

Articles

I know what it’s like to lose everything in a fire

Jan 17, 2025 | independent.co.uk | Frieda Hughes

poetryPoet and artist Frieda Hughes lived through wildfires in Wooroloo, Western Australia, in 1997. As LA mourns, she revisits her paintings of ‘inevitable, imminent loss’ LOS ANGELES FIRES PHOTOGRAPHIt doesn’t matter how rich the woman isIn the newspaper selfie in which she is snappedWith a small suitcase in a large dressing room,Wardrobes hung with the most glamorous skinsAny woman could wish to be seen in,Because it is all going to burn.
How to make the most of out-of-date food and leftovers

Jan 10, 2025 | independent.co.uk | Frieda Hughes

poetryPoet and artist Frieda Hughes hates wasting food – here are her top tips on how not to... EVERYTHING SOUPInto the pot I toss post-Christmas and New Year’s feasting,Yellowing broccoli, courgettes, the puckered skins of whichMust be removed, and exhausted onions fried with sprouting garlic,Blended with homemade gravy extracted from the boil of turkey bonesAnd the juice of a roasting, to become a soup of some importanceWhen it might have all been wasted; old food given new life.
Why I had to make an emergency dash to the vet – with an owl in the passenger seat

Dec 6, 2024 | independent.co.uk | Frieda Hughes

poetryThis week, poet and artist Frieda Hughes recounts a frantic dash through the streets of Swindon in search of treatment for her pet Eurasian eagle owl, EddieSWINDONSometimes the nearby surgeries are not enoughFor a Eurasian eagle owl with blistering eyelidsThat have furrowed the brows of countless vets in blue coatsDespite qualifications. I packed him with care for the three-hour drive.
On Black Friday, I fell for an Amazon scam - here’s what you need to know

Nov 29, 2024 | independent.co.uk | Frieda Hughes

AMAZON WILL NEVER PHONE YOUThe phone call announces that a woman with ulterior motivesIn damaging property, is going to get away with it. I have seen howEvery aspect of her life involves the lie it takes to break somethingOver and over again until it cannot be mended, yetI have no solution. The van driver photographs the parcelHe leaves on your doorstep as proof of delivery,Before taking possession. The scammer types ‘forgotten password’Into your Amazon account having obtained your phone number.
A deadly car crash revealed something awful

Nov 22, 2024 | independent.co.uk | Frieda Hughes

SNOWSaturday, before the snow came,Two men named like brothers from another countryDrag-raced the roads I call home, drug-drivingTheir uninsured blue and red into a white Toyota. The driver was dead as they drove off in tandemTo save themselves the trouble of arrest. A back-seat child was air-lifted from its parent. Caught now, I wonder if karma is just an invention,Or if their lives will erode as retributionWorks its way into the layers of their clothing,Their bedding, their skin.
Why I’m having to rehome a much-loved family pet

Nov 15, 2024 | independent.co.uk | Frieda Hughes

THE (FIVE FOOT) LONG GOODBYEI have been saying goodbye to her an inch at a time,Stroking down her satin overlaps as ifShe will vibrate with some kind of recognitionAfter Christmases of chilling indifferenceThrough the turn of the leaves and the spiral of the sun. She has grown a handspan a yearFor nine years now, leaving me her old clothes,Slipping out of them like a corkscrew,Sometimes soaking for days in her bathTo loosen the folds.
How I escaped the madness of the US election

Nov 8, 2024 | independent.co.uk | Frieda Hughes

BONFIRE NIGHTBeech trees crisp and colour their ochres and reds. The stillness of autumn has left them well-dressedIn the unusual quiet that tamps the days into submissionAnd gutters the birdsong. Gone is a season that never fulfilled its potential. We waded the summer countryside, globally warmedTo the cockles of our mud pies in the shelter of our umbrellas,And celebrated when the cloud cover did not bring rainOn Bonfire Night.
Artificial intelligence… and they call it progress!

Nov 1, 2024 | independent.co.uk | Frieda Hughes

PROGRESSI stare at the online questionnaire; it asks if I’d complyAnd allow my work to educate AI. If only my answer could shore up the wall of protestAnd keep art elsewhere. But minds are made up. We will become obsolete; our efforts absorbed. AI will suck up our words and imagesAnd ingest our music.
Sorting through an old box of photographs is a nostalgia rush

Oct 25, 2024 | independent.co.uk | Frieda Hughes

PHOTOGRAPHSRepurposing a room is like moving home, furniture in the hallwayWaits for the carpet to be re-cut to accommodateNew shelves, empty cupboards and vacant drawers. Enthusiastic, I pull files, books and folders out of storageAnd from beneath the stairs to fill these new spaces. Into this freedom I drag my many boxes of photographs. Nostalgia hits me with the pillowy cushion of my history,Images of love and curiosity remembering what I’ve left behind.
If you want DIY to be done well, get a woman to do it

Oct 18, 2024 | independent.co.uk | Frieda Hughes

LIBRARY BLUESThat the old dining room has become obsoleteIs not exciting news to my patient friendWho dangles like a Christmas bauble on the endOf our telephone call. I am designing the libraryThat has lived 20 years in my head – a libraryWith files and books and the Encyclopaedia BrittanicaTaking up an entire shelf with the world’s contents circa 1996. A time limit is donated by the painter’s single available day.