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Birthday Letters

by Ted Hughes

3.87 · rating details · 1,638 ratings · 107 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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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 leav...more

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Sep 19, 2011

Thom Bensley rated it

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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Oct 12, 2010

Zoë (In The Next Room) rated it

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 kn...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

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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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Jan 10, 2009

Christopher Ingham rated it

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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", whi...more

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Aug 23, 2011

Evelyn rated it

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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...more

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Mar 31, 2010

Jamie rated it

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...moreI 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

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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- ...more

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Dec 22, 2008

Grant rated it

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 supp...more

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Nov 15, 2008

Kim rated it

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 Plat...more

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Jun 21, 2011

Lynn Fast rated it

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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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Dec 01, 2010

Everett Darling rated it

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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

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 resp...more

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Aug 24, 2009

James Murphy rated it

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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 gobsmacke...more

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Jul 30, 2010

Kristin rated it

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

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

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

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 ...more

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Dec 14, 2010

Rachel Rueckert rated it

Shelves: poetry

A brilliant poet. I love his stile, his images, everything-but most especially what he finally says about this failed relationship. I do not know why I am so fascinated by his broken marriage and Sylvia Plath's tragic ending, but I loved getting this side of the story. "Your Paris" and "Daffodils" were my favorites.

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Jun 09, 2009

Sosoohee rated it

ted hughes broke his silence after decade or two since his ex-wife, sylvia plath ended her life. don't think he repented for his part and some of it sounds like whinnying but, he did think of her. it's just sad that their adult son recently also ended his life in his forties. never married. in alaska.

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Feb 12, 2011

Jim Agustin rated it

· review of another edition

I have the 1999 paperback edition from Faber of this book, in a rather unattractive blue with text in gray and red. Whatever Plath defenders may say (or stab with), this is a moving and painful collection that is worth reading over and over. Here Hughes dresses a wound that refuses to heal.

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Nov 25, 2011

Jessica rated it

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Shelves: poetry

One of my favourite poetry books because of the way it reveals Hughes feelings about life with his previous poet-wife Sylvia Plath who committed suicide. Some of the poems are exquisite gems that bear testament to a love that he felt and still continues to feel within him.

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Oct 27, 2010

Davis Stamford rated it

This was a great book, a lot of it is dedicated to his late wife who killed herself; Sylvia Plath. Little did the world know that he kept one poem out of it, which dealt specifically about his feelings of her suicide. Still, this was a great read from a classic English poet.

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Feb 03, 2011

Elizabeth Schmidt rated it

It helps a lot if you know the story of poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. You can read Plath's diary to see her side of things. I thought these poems would be "his side" of the relationship. I guess they are, but mostly the poems are about her, not him. Her inner struggles are obvious - death is the resounding chord and she was hunted and haunted be it. Of course Hughes writes looking back after her suicide, so maybe he's charting the inevitable trajectory. I think Hughes is such a g...more

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Sep 23, 2011

Erin Tuzuner rated it

Shelves: 2011, poetry

While the notoriety of being Sylvia Plath's philandering husband initially tainted my thoughts, some of Ted's lines are absolutely amazing. It seems a bit churlish to write paeans to your dead wife without taking some responsibility. I have to admire Ted's ability to avoid responsibility and write his side to her.

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Jan 18, 2009

Lindsay rated it

Ridiculous though it is, since I've never known Ted Hughes, I think he's an ass. I read this mainly to see how he addressed Sylvia Plath's death. His poetry is technically rock-solid, but he's not quite adventurous enough for me.

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Jan 25, 2012

Homeinmyshoes rated it

Shelves: poetry, 2012-booklist

No matter what side people take I want to thank Ted for this collection of poems. They are just tangible, holdable, and eerily familiar. I especially enjoyed "Rabbit Catcher" which is just the feeling of so many of my days.

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Mar 20, 2009

Emily Arnold added it

This book has opened my eyes in the relationship between Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. He writes so beautifully, and every poem made me wanting more. I cannot do anything but rave about him and his poetry.

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Jul 27, 2011

Joana added it

"As I'm miserable and fit for nothing if I don't write continuously I shall, from now on, shape my life around writing instead of squeezing writing into my life where I can."

urray.

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Dec 20, 2011

Charlie rated it

I love Birthday Letters. It is a dying man coming to terms with a traumatic past. And the beauty and elegance with which he writes about Sylvia Plath are just beautiful.

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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...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.” — 19 people liked it

“What happened casually remains -” — 13 people liked it

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