Ted Hughes's poems often contain striking and sometimes quite startling imagery and language. In the poem "Thrushes" for example Hughes's describes the birds in an almost disturbing manner. Hughes refers to the birds as "more coiled steel than living" this produces a startling image of the speed and almost robotic and mechanical nature of the thrush who sits, ready to spring into action and devour its victim. It is almost as though they have no other purpose but to hunt and kill their food. He describes the thrush's eye as "dark" and "deadly" which gives a threatening...
suffering underneath it all by mentioning the hidden wreckage of world war one which is hidden by the North sea. He uses startling language and imagery to emphasise the horrors of the war, "Heart-beats, bomb, bayonet. Mother, Mother! Cries the pierced helmet. Cordite oozings of Gallipoli"

The poem Mayday on Holderness also uses startling imagery and language in a similar way to "Thrushes" it also describes something typical like a beautiful summer's day but concentrates on the pain and suffering lurking underneath. Like how "Thrushes" portrays an ordinary bird as a deadly and single-minded killing machine.