What were those caryadits bearing?
It was the first poem of yours I had seen.
It was the only poem you ever write
That I disliked through the eyes of a stranger.
Hughes begins with a  rhetorical question , in which he establishes the  metaphor  of the caryatids. As he will later explain, they are the female stutues that are the pillars that support a classical building. These  represent the present-day women from whom the poet seeks reassurance. In his need for praise and approval he distorts what he hears and “So missed everything”.  The statues were clearly bearing his uneasy psychological state of mind.
Caryatids 1