Details Books To Birthday Letters

Original Title:	Birthday Letters
ISBN:	0374525811 (ISBN13: 9780374525811)
Edition Language:	English
Literary Awards:	Whitbread Award for Poetry and Book of the Year (1998), T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry (1998), Forward Prize for Best Collection (1998)

Birthday Letters Paperback | Pages: 198 pages

Itemize Based On Books Birthday Letters

Title	:	Birthday Letters
Author	:	Ted Hughes
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 198 pages
Published	:	March 30th 1999 by Farrar Straus Giroux (first published January 10th 1998)
Categories	:	Poetry. Nonfiction. Classics. Biography

Commentary Toward Books Birthday Letters

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 exceptions) to Plath, and were written over a period of more than twenty-five years, the first a few years after her suicide in 1963. Some are love letters, others haunted recollections and ruminations. In them, Hughes recalls his and Plath's time together, drawing on the powerful imagery of his work--animal, vegetable, mythological--as well as on Plath's famous verse. Countless books have discussed the subject of this intense relationship from a necessary distance, but this volume--at last--offers us Hughes's own account. Moreover, it's a truly remarkable collection of poems in its own right.

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Ratings: 3.92 From 8498 Users | 372 Reviews

Appraise Based On Books Birthday Letters

2.5 stars. Good but not my kinda poetry.

'Drawing calmed you. Your poker infernal pen / Was like a branding iron. Objects / Suffered into their new presence, tortured / Into final position.' I like two or three of the more than eighty poems here. But in general I find Ted Hughes an abominable figure and this aestheticized denigration of Sylvia Plath distasteful. For instance: 'What I remember / Is thinking: She'll do something crazy. And I ripped / the door open and jumped in beside you.' Most unfortunate is the fact that Plath can no

Some of the poetry in this novel is absolutely amazing and gripping, others in my opinion not so much. There does seem to be some, for lack of a better phrase, filler. Either way it's still a good collection with a lot of creativity to it.

The freezing soilOf the garden, as I clawed it.All around me that midnight'sGiant clock of frost. And somewhereInside it, wanting to feel nothing,A pulse of fever. SomewhereInside that numbness of the earthOur future trying to happen.I look up - as if to meet your voiceWith all its urgent futureThat has burst in on me. Then look backAt the book of the printed words.You are ten years dead. It is only a story.

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

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.

I wanted to hate this. I've read enough by Sylvia Plath to know that I love her. I've read enough about her relationship with Ted Hughes to know that I hate him. What bullshit is that?Of course I know nothing about either of them. I know what's been written of their marriage, it's breakdown and the next chapter of suicides in Ted's life. That tells me nothing. What I read in this collection was rawness of love and loss. His side of their relationship. Was it any truer than the accusations that