Summary of THOUGHT FOX by TED HUGHES

 It is a poem about writing poetry. Ted Hughes draws an analogy between thought and a fox. The poem opens on the words “I imagine this midnight moment’s forest’’. We are not dealing with a  forest but with an imagined one. Its external action takes place in a room late at night where the poet is sitting alone. He also has in front of him a blank page where his fingers move. Outside the night is starless, silent, and totally black. But the poet senses a presence which disturbs him that is something alive in his mind. Describing the night as "lonely" is a good clue to the fact that the night is a symbol for something else because the night cannot be lonely. So “something” is approaching and entering into the poet’s mind.

 It does not enter in an enforced manner but as delicately as snow falls in. The idea itself is symbolized by the fox’s presence and it is not clear to the poet. As Hughes writes, ‘‘a fox’s nose touches twig, leaf’’ showing the sensory parts of a fox. The nose feels its way through the darkness. Gradually the fox’s eyes appear out of the same formlessness. The fox goes on to set neat prints on the snow that is the writing comes across clearly on the paper. At times, it appears like a lame shadow trying to pick up speed and accelerate towards the final goal. The term stump refers to the base of the tree that is incomplete without a treetop. The poet has to write his idea beyond the stump. It is in the hollow of a body that is “bold to come”. Across clearings, there is an eye. “A widening deepening greenness” in the poem makes us imagine that the fox actually jumping through the eyes of the poet.
 Gradually, the fox emerges out of formlessness  “a sudden sharp hot stink of fox’’. The fox is suddenly visible. This shows that the idea is suddenly within the poet’s mind and has been immortalized on the page.