28 December 2009

Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes


Red on blue hurts the eye, but obviously makes for great covers. In a similar way, this moment happens to be both weird and perfect for finishing a collection like Birthday Letters. In the 88 poems that broke Hughes' (almost) silence 35 years after Sylvia Plath's death, he finally speaks of their life together.
All the prison animals had to be patient 
While we married. 

It must be one of the most emotionally complex and extraordinary collections of love letters ever written. 
Terror
Was the cloud of you

Birthday Letters was published in 1998, Ted Hughes' last year in life.