Wind

Like many of Hughes’s poems, “Wind” is centered in the natural world, but in contrast to most poetry produced by his contemporaries, nature is symbolic—almost mythological in scope and detail. In contrast to the formal and idealistic poetry of the Western literary tradition, Hughes wrote verse that sprang from the secret inner world of the subconscious. The descriptions are spare rather than pastoral, dramatic rather than passive. Thematically, Hughes’s poems broke from the safer observational subject matter and presentation to present harrowing struggles in the psyche as evidenced by the human versus nature struggle that sets the context of "Wind."

While Hughes’s poetry is not confessional as that of his wife Sylvia Plath’s—whose thinly veiled poetic subjects were nearly always herself—the couple’s troubled marriage cannot be fully separated from his poetry. During their brief union, Hughes and Plath served as the other’s muse, editor, and literary champion. After Plath’s death by suicide, Hughes quit writing for a time to immerse himself in Plath’s oeuvre; this influence is evidenced in his later work, including Birthday Letters—a collection devoted to his experience and remembrance of their relationship. While the volume was not published until 1998, shortly before his death, Hughes wrote the individual poems over a period of decades.