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Birthday Letters

3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 · rating details · 3,526 ratings · 152 reviews

Formerly Poet Laureate to Queen Elizabeth II, the late Ted Hughes (1930-98) is recognized as one of the few contemporary poets whose work has mythic scope and power. And few episodes in postwar literature have the legendary stature of Hughes's romance with, and marriage to, the great American poet Sylvia Plath.

The poems in Birthday Letters are addressed (with just two exce...more

Paperback, 198 pages

Published March 30th 1999 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published 1998)

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Sep 27, 2012 Jonathan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: university literature students, poetry lovers, anyone interested in Sylvia Plath

Recommended to Jonathan by: university course

Shelves: poetry, university

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 response to her Ariel (as seen in the references to 'ariel' and 'bees' in various poems. One problem of criticism of the poetry however, is a criticism that haunts many books unfairly. That this is merely a...more

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Feb 21, 2011 Matt added it

Ted Hughes has an uncomfortable place in the room where Sylvia Plath killed herself (and another in the room where his next wife, Assia Wevill, killed herself and their only daughter) -- he was the gas, he was the ovens, or he was the mark to which the the dial was turned. Maybe he was the sealed doors.

In Birthday Letters he places himself in and around that first room, Plath's room. And those places are horrifying, those he occupies and also those spaces he seems to have to leave empty.

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Sep 19, 2011 Tom Bensley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-best-of-the-very-best

My last review for a book of poetry (Plath's Ariel) was only a few lines long. Perhaps it was because I was tired, I'd just written another review or, the more plausible, I was scared of reviewing poetry. Poetry is not something you casually bring up with your mates after a few beers or during a penniless poker game because chances are that they couldn't care less. Or, you just don't want to sound like a fool. My reason was the latter. I was convinced that to review poetry one is required to hav...more

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Aug 25, 2012 Emespre rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

I didn't really read many of the poems in depth. Like any collection of poems (or short stories), some of them were really interesting while others were boring and it constantly changed to different ideas every few pages. We're studying Conflicting Perspectives in the Hughes-Plath relationship in class and we're studying about six of the poems in this book, so while I didn't have to read this collection it did help with creating a better understanding of the situation. My natural inclination is...more

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Apr 09, 2013 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this alongside the Feinstein biography of Hughes, which was illuminating. i'd recommend doing the same as it helps place the locations and events that inspired the poetry. The collection is raw in places and reflective in others, frequently nail-on-the-head brilliant. He's a poet who teaches that the big fancy words aren't what's always needed ('wet shops' - God, can you think of a better description of Yorkshire? - 'the canteen clutter of the British restaurant'- this is pre-coffee shop...more

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May 31, 2012 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars

An amazing collection full of pathos and tenderness. I'm glad I read it as part of a poetry class and at the same general time as Ariel, because I didn't know anything about Sylvia Plath's story before and these poems would be pretty pointless without at least a basic understanding of that relationship. That said, there is a lot of powerful writing, some fabulous insights and metaphors in here. Some of the highlights for me were:
Sam
The Tender Place
Karlsbad Caverns (I love the comparison of the b...more

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Oct 12, 2010 Zoë (In The Next Room) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

"A new soul, still not understanding,
Thinking it is still your honeymoon
In the happy world, with your whole life waiting,
Happy, and all your poems still to be found."

In Birthday Letters Ted Hughes offers 88 responses to Sylvia Plath in chronological order, beginning when he first met her, following her 1963 suicide and the years after as he raised their two children amidst the legend his wife left behind following her early death. Although I knew both Plath and Hughes were poets, I had neve...more "A new soul, still not understanding,
Thinking it is still your honeymoon
In the happy world, with your whole life waiting,
Happy, and all your poems still to be found."

In Birthday Letters Ted Hughes offers 88 responses to Sylvia Plath in chronological order, beginning when he first met her, following her 1963 suicide and the years after as he raised their two children amidst the legend his wife left behind following her early death. Although I knew both Plath and Hughes were poets, I had never managed to read any of his writing despite having loved Plath's poetry since I was a young teenager. I began Birthday Letters with both a lot of resentment towards Hughes for, among many things, destroying the diaries of Plath's final years. However I was also curious about a book Hughes published after thirty years of silence on Plath's suicide, as well as the insight it might offer into their tumultuous relationship.

Most of the poems are well written, articulate and precise description, careful word choice. Birthday Letters is hard to fault from a linguistic standpoint- it is when it comes to the emotional connection I felt lacking. Considering the premise of the book, this is literally a book of poems written to a wife who killed herself, they felt distanced and cold. The top layer of beauty was there, but underneath many of them lacked the intensity of feeling I expected and wanted from the book. This is not universally true of course, there are gems of poems with sharp glittering edges which slice through the celebrity and several decades worth of rumours to tell the reader what life for Ted and Sylvia was really like. In one of my favourites, "18 Rugby Street" he writes:

"In the roar of soul your scar told me-
Like its secret name or its password-
How you had tried to kill yourself. And I heard
Without ceasing for a moment to kiss you
As if a sober star had whispered it
Above the revolving, rumbling city: stay clear."

Unfortunately whether or not it was the intent, there is also a lot of blame laid on Sylvia, a woman who apparently hated England, was fated for death, vicious and was ruled by her relationship with her father. Although I am appreciative of Hughes' honesty and I recognize the fact that this is simply one side of an awfully complex story, but the fact is that his tone often made me dislike him even more. Perhaps this dislike contributed to my inability to read more than a few poems at a time, but when I compare Birthday Letters to Ariel (which I have devoured multiple times) I find it even more lacking. Ultimately I found Birthday Letters valuable for the undeniable insight into the complex Ted/Sylvia dynamic it provides, as well as several truly lucid beautiful pieces but its inconsistency and its tone of judgment left me wanting for the powerful emotional connection that defines good poetry for me. ***
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May 18, 2008 Christopher rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

I like Ted Hughes a lot. Parts of this book are very good, but this "personal" style doesn't really suit him, I don't think. Still, it's required reading for those with a serious interest in Hughes/Plath.

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Mar 11, 2012 Yona rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry, unhealthy-relationships

I feel like Plath has become a becon for many women writers, and Hughes is cast as the villain in her life, the man holding the knife. This collection finally gives readers access to his perspective. Through his lens, we see Plath's unpredictability, self-loathing, and the pressure she put on him: he was her lightning rod. In particular, I loved his verson of the Rabbit Catcher, as that is my favorite of Plath's poems, and his take on it brings the story to fascinating new light. I enjoyed the w...more

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Jan 10, 2009 Christopher Ingham rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a stunning collection of poetry. The poems were written over the period of years since Sylvia Plath's death and published in 1998, just before Hughes himself died. All of the poems, with the exception of two which are for his children, are addressed to Sylvia Plath and trace their love and somewhat tempestuous relationship. Whilst all of the poems are beautifully constructed and moving in their examination of both Hughes and Plath, my two favourites are "Wuthering Heights", which could b...more

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Aug 23, 2011 Evelyn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, read-in-2011

I'm sure that many Plath fans will have read Birthday Letters and wished that they could have been a fly on the wall of Sylvia and Ted's marriage. This collection of reflective and emotionally charged poetry will be the closest any of us will come to gaining such a private insight. Although it's painfully clear in these works that Hughes loved Plath dearly, there's also an uneasy tone of sadness and judgement which made some of the poems especially difficult to read. Birthday Letters is a book t...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Maria Ch rated it 3 of 5 stars

I am not the biggest Ted Hughes fan, not in terms of his relationship with Sylvia Plath but in terms of his poetry. I don’t really like it or relate to it. However the nature of these poems is different and very alluring, addressed to a different audience, one that craved to read his version of the story of his marriage and divorce to Sylvia Plath, who Sylvia was beyond her writings, how it was living with her etc. I think this collection gives answers to these questions, it is definitely an acc...more I am not the biggest Ted Hughes fan, not in terms of his relationship with Sylvia Plath but in terms of his poetry. I don’t really like it or relate to it. However the nature of these poems is different and very alluring, addressed to a different audience, one that craved to read his version of the story of his marriage and divorce to Sylvia Plath, who Sylvia was beyond her writings, how it was living with her etc. I think this collection gives answers to these questions, it is definitely an account of their life together, some poems are descriptive and informative in terms of that, there are numerous glimpses of what attracted and scared Hughes in Plath throughout the collection and while some poems sound confessional, others feel a bit voyeuristic for the reader (almost like intruding private moments). I would say there is a defensive tone, Hughes trying to defend himself against a public that condemned him. By the end of the collection, I got the feeling that Hughes blamed everyone and everything for Sylvia’s death and the failure of their marriage but him. The move to Devon, her daddy issues, her mother, Sylvia’s temper, her suicide attempts, everything is to blame but him. The only thing he seems to acknowledge and the only responsibility he seems to accept is his inability to understand her, which in my opinion is not enough. With hindsight he should have assumed some responsibility for his actions instead of trying to victimize himself which he does at times, presenting an image of the perfect husband who had sacrificed his life for his wife’s happiness but due to her obsession with her father and her mother’s constant presence their marriage failed and she committed suicide. Mind you this is the opinion I formed having finished the collection, when I got tired of recurrent themes of subtle accusations.
Overall it was a very interesting book to read and in a way I think it provides/conveys as much closure to the reader as I assume it did to Hughes.
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May 22, 2013 Amy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

Ugh, what a chore this was to get through. I've read random Hughes poems before and have liked them, so I was surprised and disappointed that I did not like this collection--at all. Where to begin? Maybe with "You had a fever. You had a real ailment." This was the condescending tone that Hughes employed throughout many of his poems. I am sure he had a very complicated relationship with Plath, and being involved with someone with mental illness is very challenging (and I can imagine the anger I'd...more Ugh, what a chore this was to get through. I've read random Hughes poems before and have liked them, so I was surprised and disappointed that I did not like this collection--at all. Where to begin? Maybe with "You had a fever. You had a real ailment." This was the condescending tone that Hughes employed throughout many of his poems. I am sure he had a very complicated relationship with Plath, and being involved with someone with mental illness is very challenging (and I can imagine the anger I'd feel for a loved one who committed suicide), but the poems here come off as so incredibly biased that it is frustrating and gross. He writes of her physical appearance repeatedly, her Americanness, her nerves, her Daddy, her death wish. "Now, I see, I saw, sitting, the lonely/ Girl who was going to die." Okay. But I could write a poem about those things regarding Plath, too. Because I don't know her--it is shallow. As her former husband, I would expect a bit more, especially in 200 pages. Where was her humanity? Where was his? The most I got from him was "If I had grasped that whatever comes with a fox/ Is what tests a marriage and proves it is a marriage--/ I would not have failed the test. Would you have failed it?/ But I failed. Our marriage had failed." Bleck. I guess I just don't think this thing was especially moving or anything I think poetry is supposed to be--inventive, playful, honest.

I did like the poems "The 59th Bear," "Fate Playing," and "A Picture of Otto," and:

"In my position, the right witchdoctor/ Might have caught you in flight with his bare hands,/ Tossed you, cooling, one hand to the other,/ Godless, happy, quieted.// I managed/ A wisp of your hair, your ring, your watch, your nightgown."

"You wanted to study/ Your stars--the guards/ of your prison yard"

"You kept being overwhelmed/ By the misery of the place, like a nausea."

"A land with maybe one idea--snake."

"'This is evil,'/ you said. "This is real evil.'/ Whatever it was, the whole landscape wore it/ Like a plated mask. 'What is it?'/ I kept saying. 'What is it?'/ As if it might force the whatever/ To materialize, maybe standing by our care,/ Maybe some old Indian.// 'Maybe it's the earth,'/ You said. 'Or maybe it's ourselves./ This emptiness is sucking something out of us./ Here where there's only death, maybe our life/ Is terrifying. Maybe it's the life/ In us/ Frightening the earth, and frightening us.'"

"A rainy wedding picture/ On a foreign grave, among lilies--/ And just beneath it, unseen, the real bones/ Still undergoing everything."

"You'd caught something./ ... Those terrible, hypersensitive/ Fingers of your verse closed round it and/ Felt it alive. The poems, like smoking entrails,/ Came soft into your hands."

"It darkened a darkness darker."

"In the pit of red/ You hid from the bone-clinic whiteness.// But the jewel you lost was blue."(less)

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Feb 12, 2012 Katie Dreyer rated it 4 of 5 stars

This collection is a 'must read' for anyone interested in Sylvia Plath. Ted Hughes, a poet who normally abhorred any intrusion into his private life, writes candidly about his tumultuous relationship with Sylvia Plath. Some of the poems are incredibly beautiful, others are painfully sad. Almost all of the poems are addressed directly to Sylvia and seem incredibly intimate as a result. In one of the most heart wrenching pieces, "Life After Death", Ted tells Sylvia how their son's eyes had "become...more This collection is a 'must read' for anyone interested in Sylvia Plath. Ted Hughes, a poet who normally abhorred any intrusion into his private life, writes candidly about his tumultuous relationship with Sylvia Plath. Some of the poems are incredibly beautiful, others are painfully sad. Almost all of the poems are addressed directly to Sylvia and seem incredibly intimate as a result. In one of the most heart wrenching pieces, "Life After Death", Ted tells Sylvia how their son's eyes had "become/So perfectly [her] eyes,/Became wet jewels."

Many of the later poems in the collection focus on death and the seeming inevitability of Plath's suicide. This is perhaps what bothered me the most. It is no secret that many Sylvia admirers think of Ted Hughes as a sort of tyrannical pig - an egotistic womanizer who left Sylvia alone with two small children during one of the coldest winters in England's history. Many would go so far as to say that Ted's infidelity was the main reason Sylvia ended her life. Although I would certainly not say this, I do think Ted Hughes should take some responsibility for the disintegration of their relationship, if not for Plath's suicide. Ted blames fate, Sylvia's crippling depression, the cosmos, the stars, Assia Wevill (the woman he left Sylvia for)... Seemingly everybody but himself.

The best poems are the ones detailing some of Ted's memories of his time with Sylvia. It is in these poems that we are allowed to see a very different version of Sylvia Plath. This Sylvia rides a horse named Sam and explores Yellowstone eagerly with her husband, counting the number of bears they see along the way. This Sylvia draws the marketplace while vacationing in Spain and Ted remembers her "shorts, [her] short-sleeved jumper...[her] long brown legs."

This Sylvia is "a new soul still not understanding,/Thinking it is still [her] honeymoon/In the happy world with [her] whole life waiting,/Happy, and all [her] poems still to be found."

Anyone with any prior knowledge regarding Plath's life will be thrilled to come across a number of allusions to real-life biographical events. A truly unique look into one of the most fascinating literary marriages of the twentieth century.(less)

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May 02, 2013 Diann Blakely added it · review of another edition

The sad, shocking news from England of the Poet Laureate's death will doubtless prompt fresh appraisals of Hughes's last book, published only six months prior to his demise. Cancer was a factor in Hughes's decision to release *Birthday Letters*, written over a period of 25 years and chronicling his failed marriage to Sylvia Plath.

While the young Hughes transformed his native fauna into mythic instruments of terror via bitten-off syntax and a doom-thundering tone, *Birthday Letters* documents the...more

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Mar 31, 2010 Jamie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry, read-in-2010

I need to get something off my chest with this one. I'd read Birthday Letters a few years ago, I guess when I was first getting into Plath and was not particularly interested in the warzone of the Plath/Hughes legacy. I also didn't really give much thought to poetry at the time--if it was pretty or vaguely shocking, I'd nod and think, 'Well, look how smart I am, for reading this.' So I think I let Hughes off the hook last time--and I should clarify to say that I don't hate Hughes' poetry; I'm no...more I need to get something off my chest with this one. I'd read Birthday Letters a few years ago, I guess when I was first getting into Plath and was not particularly interested in the warzone of the Plath/Hughes legacy. I also didn't really give much thought to poetry at the time--if it was pretty or vaguely shocking, I'd nod and think, 'Well, look how smart I am, for reading this.' So I think I let Hughes off the hook last time--and I should clarify to say that I don't hate Hughes' poetry; I'm not familiar with a large body of it, but I can safely say, having given them a shot on several occasions, that I love "The Thought-Fox," "Wodwo," "Pike," and a handful of others, including a few from the Crow sequence, though I can't recall the titles at the moment. And I'm hoping to read more of his work--The Hawk in Rain and Crow are both on my list for this year.

However, getting through this book this time was a bit of an ordeal. I am genuinely troubled by the violations on display in this text. Yes, I know Hughes wrote them (originally) without the intent of publishing them; I know this was his last book; I know the critics fawned over it (Kakutani says something about it 'clearly coming from a poet's core' or some sentimental shite like that). And I know this is one subjective stance on the Plath/Hughes relationship--from the perspective of one player, in contrast to the many horror tales we've heard of Hughes over the years. I don't think Hughes is some villain--both he and Plath seem similarly awful at moments, and similarly inspired and loving at others, by all accounts. But the portrait painted in this text is one that has a somewhat disturbing undercurrent--Hughes refers to himself almost obsessively as the 'dog' that scampered alongside or behind Plath and her furies. He is, at times, wary, tail-wagging, frightened, dumb, loyal, etc. Meanwhile, the Plath of Birthday Letters is alternately vicious, appropriative, physically violent, tortured, 'fated' for death (and 'fated' as a muse-goddess, something Diane Middlebrook pays a lot of mind to in her 'biography' on their marriage, Her Husband), and a pathetic little girl snared in the trappings of MummyDaddyMummyDaddyDaddyDaddyMummy (this is almost verbatim the ending to one of the poems in this collection). Plath is envisioned as usually helpless, even when furious or taken with the poetic 'spirit.' She is the conduit for God in one of Hughes' poems, which may have been something she said--but constantly, she seems to be the conduit for just about everything, be it the Mummy/Daddy one-two-punch, the muse speaking either to her or to Hughes, the electric jolts of her madness, or for the cruelty Hughes tears down in her poetry.

Why should I care? This is, as people like Middlebrook and a number of other recent critics argue, a book that is 'in dialogue' with Plath's biography and poetic legacy. Sure. But more importantly, this is a dialogue in which Plath can never enter, being dead. So 35 years after her death (nearly 50 today), Birthday Letters leaves behind a snapshot of their marriage and their poetry that places Hughes in the supplicant position to his almost oracular, frightening, mad, brilliant (when he gives her that much), wife. I don't intend to run off and chip the 'Hughes' off SP's gravestone, but I wonder what the ethical ramifications of this portrayal are--it seems somehow implicitly violent for Hughes to 'talk back' to his wife in a way that not only enables those who blindly mythologize her, but diminishes her poetry as something neither she nor he could help or stand in the way. And I say he only hints at her 'brilliance' (which he has spoken of, with less trouble, on other occasions), because just as often, he suggests that her poetry is necessarily a nasty outlet for petty rages and gossip. Thus, in "The Rabbit Catcher" (speaking back to Plath's poem of the same name), he revises her vision of male violence--a poem that beautifully links the masculine adventurer's invasive interest in the natural world with sexual, domestic violence against women--to refigure himself as the hapless, lovelorn husband watching Plath cruelly 'snare' people in her poetry. But what Plath's poetry never did--though of course we like to pick moments that seem so transparently autobiographical--was stoop down to trivial gab sessions. If someone appeared in a violent poem--let's take "Daddy" for an easy example--that person was not *that person*; that person became myth, became conflated with a million other myths. "Daddy" may feature Otto Plath's German heritage and ill-fated stubbed-toe, but more importantly, the poem relates a more genuine concern with what Plath took to be a peculiarly feminine interest in domineering men, and in turn, located these issues of male dominance in a more global sphere--thus, the Holocaust imagery, the wonderfully Gothic conclusion. Hughes simply does not do 'confessional' in the way Plath did; Plath's goal was always (to my mind) to take the minute, the private, the domestic, and to weave larger-than-life scenarios from them. Thus, a cut thumb in "Cut" becomes a narrative of colonization and national violence; a jaded hausfrau is a disgruntled Eve, the "agonized side of a green Adam."

Hughes, instead, makes Plath--and more horribly, her poetry--a mockery. And if Plath can't speak back, what does this say about the history of women's writing being 'brought down a peg' by the final word of her male counterpart? It frightens me that there's such unabashed praise of a text that--yes, is tender and sometimes beautiful, and clearly is written with great feeling for their marriage, in good times and bad--finally leaves us with the feeling that Plath really *was* just the madwoman in the attic, and that Hughes, unwittingly loyal pup that he was, merely follows along to sand down the rough edges her audience simply 'can't handle'?

Not to mention, I don't find the poetry here all that great. There are moments where it's quite lucid, quite stunning--but mostly, it struck me as the sort of stuff you might see in an advanced undergraduate writing workshop. It leaves behind most of what makes Hughes' poetry so distinctively Hughes--with the exception of some of the descriptions of the natural world (I quite liked "The 59th Bear," for example), the collection often reeks of maudlin self-pity, repetitive imagery (which do not build to crescendo, but simmer out), and a usually frustrating speaking-I. I give it 3 stars because, well, I don't think it deserves less--but I do think it needs to be reconsidered on a more political level.

Whew. I'm babbling on. Maybe all this will only bother you if you're really into that whole generation of poetry. I get my panties in a twist over things like this--but perhaps it detracts from my enjoyment a bit too much. Any case, just ordered Hughes' Collected Poems, so I'm still willing to give the rest of the work a fair chance.(less)

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Jan 29, 2008 minnie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: library

How can someone review poetry?I certainly don't feel qualified to.The poems in this collection read in chronological order, from Ted Hughes meeting Syvia Plath up to her death and beyond.They are like a dialogue with her, questioning,remembering events, portents, of what was to come. In 18 Rugby Street they meet in London:
'We clutched each other giddily
For Safety and went over some Niagra,Falling
In the roar of soul your scar told me-
Like its secret name or its password-
How you had tried to kill...more

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Dec 22, 2008 Grant rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

this is not a collection of poems to be read in long stretches in my opinion. in fact i found it difficult to read more than a few at a time. though i am a big fan of ted hughes, i was not as impressed with many of these poems. with the exception of two poems, all our addressed to sylvia plath. this hurts stylistically. it means all the poems are bound by a "you". "you did this", "you did that". it injects drama and importance that the poems do not always support. the tone and intensity are in h...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Andy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Somehow, I got to this before reading either Sylvia Plath's poetry or The Bell Jar (and with only knowing a cursory outline of her and Hughes's life together), which proved to be an odd experience. (A friend showed me a couple of pieces and I took the plunge.) I'm going to read Plath's work ASAP and then revisit this, at which point I'll be able to get more out of it. However, it is a remarkable poetry collection regardless of its context, full of vividly sorrowful images and fleeting moments.

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Nov 15, 2008 Kim rated it 2 of 5 stars

I really didn't care for this when I started, and was almost irritated to the point of giving up at first, but it really won me over. I think this is a brave book--it takes a lot of chances and breaks a lot of rules, and in the end, I think it succeeds. "You" poems are a difficult thing, one that rarely works, but I think Hughes pulls it off here, due to the subject matter. What's most interesting, and heartbreaking here, I think, is the sense of responsibility Hughes feels for Plath's suicide,...more

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Jun 21, 2011 Lynn Fast rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I find this book comforting. Ted Hughes, who's character seemed hard to me due to his tumultuous marriage to Sylvia Plath, brilliantly, eloquently shares his thoughts and experiences so openly that I'm left feeling like we know each other. How well he speaks my own thoughts. I'm left learning that same lesson over again, that there is no black and white, no good and bad, just people doing the best they can with what they've got. Thank you Ted.

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Jan 14, 2013 Ie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, poetry

Plath as centerfold, storm-eye, metaphor, something she, with her infinite vanity, would've loved. Prosaic in parts, but persistent in its disclosure. The blurb on the back cover argued that the poems are remarkable in their own right, which is bull. The myth cannot be separated from its byproduct. The power of the poems reflect, refract, denounce, or surrender to the rage, misery, and relentlessness of their maternal ghost.

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Mar 23, 2012 Courtney Kellner rated it 4 of 5 stars

The freezing soil
Of the garden, as I clawed it.
All around me that midnight's
Giant clock of frost. And somewhere
Inside it, wanting to feel nothing,
A pulse of fever. Somewhere
Inside that numbness of the earth
Our future trying to happen.
I look up - as if to meet your voice
With all its urgent future
That has burst in on me. Then look back
At the book of the printed words.
You are ten years dead. It is only a story.

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Dec 01, 2010 Everett Darling rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010

Some good ones others not so good. Couldn´t help but feeling a little voyeuristic and the notion that he is having somewhat of a last word on Plath. He uses her language well, adopting her words and her flow as his own, and while this gives the poems depth and more Plath-ness, it is also oppresive, like he is determined to beat us over the heads with her words-her daddy, her moon, her yew-tree, her daddy, her horse...

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Dec 14, 2009 Brian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Along with his collected letters, this volume of poems (published towards the end of his life, when he felt the time was right to expose his POV concerning his wife, Sylvia Plath) provides an interesting perspective on the life and work of Plath, as well as further insight into their love and marriage. After reading these poems ("birthday letters" to Plath, written over the years after her death), it is hard to hold with the image of Hughes as purely a selfish pig who was largely responsible for...more

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Aug 24, 2009 James Murphy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a reread. I've read a lot of Hughes in the 10 years since I first read it, his poetic memoir of his and Plath's life together. Enjoyed it more, I think, saw more in it, being 10 years improved as a reader. Some of these poems are beautiful. Some are powerful. One or two are elegant. Many of them see their relationship in cosmic terms, a treatment I like a lot. Toward the end they spiral into the surreal as if they follow the arc of her madness. Like everyone else I was gobsmacked by Ari...more

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Jul 30, 2010 Kristin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

I normally love Ted Hughes, and reading this book did make me feel closer to his person, but I don't read poetry to feel closer to the poet, but to feel closer to life itself, and this just didn't do that for me. It's definitely worth reading, especially if you're interested in the relationship between Hughes and Sylvia Plath, but it's no where near as powerful as much of his other work.

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Apr 02, 2009 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

I had never read Ted Hugh's poetry before. This was just a book I wanted to read to try and understand a tragedy. I felt like I understand his side. Honestly, I am more sympathetic for him now. He was the father, he raised those kids, he was permanently scarred by what happened, and he was married to an extremely sick, albeit brilliant woman. I'm done now. I don't need to read any more about Sylvia Plath. RIP Nicholas.

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Aug 03, 2011 Christina Bouwens rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is, by far, my favorite collection of Hughes's poetry, and that is considerable when we keep in mind just how much poetry he put out in the world. Beautiful, soul-baring at the same time it's protective of the artist-man-husband-widow. Free verse in a way his previous work never quite was. Provides a window into the relationship and the aftermath that would be the crucible of his life: that in regard to Sylvia. Difficult to read and not feel somewhat heart-broken, all over again, when one k...more

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Jul 14, 2007 brook rated it 5 of 5 stars

i just can't get enough of the plath/hughes phenomenon. this collection made me love hughes as much - if not more - than his former wife. his interpretation of their meeting, falling in love, their explosive marriage, her demise, and what i found most moving - the aftermath of dealing with the loss alongside their children - is incredible. "Red" has to be one of my favourite all-time endings to a collection of poems.

by the time i got around to reading birthday letters i had already completely i...more

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About Ted Hughes

Edward James Hughes was an English poet and children's writer, known as Ted Hughes. His most characteristic verse is without sentimentality, emphasizing the cunning and savagery of animal life in harsh, sometimes disjunctive lines.

The dialect of Hughes's native West Riding area of Yorkshire set the tone of his verse. At Pembroke College, Cambridge, he found folklore and anthropology of particular...more

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Quotes from Birthday Letters

“Nobody wanted your dance,
Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering
Drowning life and your effort to save yourself,
Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil,
Looking for something to give.” — 68 people liked it

“What happened casually remains -” — 22 people liked it

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