Literary Pick (****)

Birthday Letters
-Ted Hughes





















In this collection of poems by Ted Hughes, one only gathers glimpses of what his relationship with Sylvia Plath was like. Each poem is slightly obscure yet enjoyable. In these writings one gets the sense that Plath was unstable and emotionally unpredictable. I'm sure she was, given the nature in which she died, but you can also sense Hugh's egoism, superior-lism and control. There is a sense of deflected responsibility on his part in blaming Plath's instability on the death of her father. Ted martyrizes himself to the reader.
The poems are effortless and smooth. "woody" feels like a right word to use to describe them.