Birthday letters
With just two exceptions, these 88 poems, in the form of a narrative, are addressed to Sylvia Plath, the American poet to whom Hughes was married. They were written over a period of more than 25 years, the first a few years after her suicide in 1963. Intimate and candid, they cover the whole...
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With just two exceptions, these 88 poems, in the form of a narrative, are addressed to Sylvia Plath, the American poet to whom Hughes was married. They were written over a period of more than 25 years, the first a few years after her suicide in 1963. Intimate and candid, they cover the whole period of their relationship, from the first meeting to the aftermath of Plath's death, but are largely concerned with the psychological drama that led to the writing of her finest poems and to her death.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9780571194728 (0571194729)
Publish date: January 29th 1998
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Pages no: 197
Edition language: English
(Original Review, 2002)Hughes acknowledged he repressed his own feelings for many years after Plath’s suicide. The poems he wrote before his death, “Birthday Letters”, were an outpouring of these feelings about his love for Plath. It was a top seller. If Hughes had published them as a younger man it...
"...Sitting at a book - a strange prisoner,Pacing my priceless years away, eyes lowered,To and fro, to and fro,Across my page...." (The Chipmunk)"...And a poem unfurled from youLike a loose frond of hair from your napeto be clipped and kept in a book ..."(Wuthering Heights)"...And I found a snare,C...
"...Sitting at a book - a strange prisoner,Pacing my priceless years away, eyes lowered,To and fro, to and fro,Across my page...." (The Chipmunk)"...And a poem unfurled from youLike a loose frond of hair from your napeto be clipped and kept in a book ..."(Wuthering Heights)"...And I found a snare,C...
I love Hughes' work, but found the bulk of these poems so obviously personal that I had difficulty finding an 'in', as opposed to the bulk of Hughes' other work. There are, of course, great exceptions to this, and the one poem 'The Dogs are Eating Your Mother' is worth the entire book. Where, as Chr...
Ted Hughes wrote Birthday Letters across his life and published it shortly before his death. Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath had once been married and divorced before Plath committed suicide. This anthology of poetry is as a result a collection of poems addressing Plath as 'you' like a letter, a respons...
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