Birthday Letters is a 1998 poetry collection by English poet and children's writerTed Hughes. Released only months before Hughes' death, the collection won multiple prestigious literary awards, including the Whitbread Book of the Year, the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection, and the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry in 1999.[1] This collection of eighty-eight poems is widely considered to be Hughes's most explicit response to the suicide of his estranged wife Sylvia Plath in 1963, and to their widely discussed, politicized, and "explosive" marriage. Prior to Birthday Letters, Hughes had only explicitly mentioned Plath once before, in a poem titled 'Heptonstall Cemetery' from his 1979 collection Remains of Elmet.[2]
The cover
The cover of Birthday Letters is artwork created by Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath's daughter Frieda. The cover is made up of violent reds and vibrant yellows, with just a minuscule amount of blue peaking through against a dark background. The rest of the book, including the dust jacket and Hughes' name were all in blue, which was Hughes' own decision. In the last poem of the book "Red", he begins by writing, "Red was your colour," ending the poem, and thus the entire collection, with the line "But the jewel you lost was blue."[3]
Background
Until the publication of this book, 35 years after Plath's suicide, Hughes had said and published nearly nothing about his relationship and life with Plath. When it was discovered that he had infidelities while with Plath and had destroyed some of Plath's works after her death, some critics depicted him as a monster and Plath as a victim.[4] In one instance, Hughes's name was chipped off from Plath's tombstone in Yorkshire.[5]
The "Ted Hughes controversy" concerned his possible role in Plath's suicide and subsequent attempts at controlling the finished products of her poetry. The speculation resulted in extra-literary attention on Plath and Hughes and, consequently, their works as poets.[6] Poems including "The Blue Flannel Suit" directly address their relationship, and many are directly addressed to Plath herself.
Plath and Hughes' relationship
Hughes and Plath met for the first time on 25 February 1956, at a party in Cambridge. Plath had been studying in England on a government grant, and wanted to meet Hughes after being impressed with some of the poems she'd read in a magazine. The two quickly found interest in one another, going as far as sending poems back and forth with each other.[7] On 16 June 1956, just months after their first meeting the two poets married and honeymooned in Benidorm.
A year later Hughes and Plath relocated to Massachusetts so Plath could teach at her alma mater, Smith College. With Plath finding trouble in both working on her poetry and teaching, the couple eventually moved back to London by the end of 1959.[8] On 1 April 1960, Plath gave birth to their first daughter, Frieda Hughes, and on 17 January 1962 she gave birth to their second child and first son Nicholas Hughes. In between the births of Frieda and Nicholas, Plath had gotten pregnant and suffered a miscarriage in 1961. In letters written to her therapist between 18 February 1960 and 4 February 1963, unseen until 2017, Plath accuses Hughes of physically abusing her just days before her miscarriage.[9]
Complete list of poems
Fulbright Scholars
Caryatids (I)
Caryatids (2)
Visit
Sam
The Tender Place
St Botolph's
The Shot
Trophies
18 Rugby Street
The Machine
God Help the Wolf after Whom the Dogs Do Not Bark
Fidelity
Fate Playing
The Owl
A Pink Wool Knitted Dress
Your Paris
You Hated Spain
Moonwalk
Drawing
Fever
55 Eltisley
Chaucer
Ouija
The Earthenware Head
Wuthering Heights
The Chipmunk
Horoscope
Flounders
The Blue Flannel Suit
Child's Park
9 Willow Street
The Literary Life
The Bird
Astringency
The Badlands
Fishing Bridge
The 59th Bear
Grand Canyon
Karlsbad Caverns
Black Coat
Portraits
Stubbing Wharfe
Remission
Isis
Epiphany
The Gypsy
A Dream
The Minotaur
The Pan
Error
The Lodger
Daffodils
The Afterbirth
Setebos
A Short Film
The Rag Rug
The Table
Apprehensions
Dream Life
Perfect Light
The Rabbit Catcher
Suttee
The Bee God
Being Christlike
The Beach
Dreamers
Fairy Tale
The Blackbird
Totem
Robbing Myself
Blood and Innocence
Costly Speech
The Inscription
Night-Ride on Ariel
Telos
Brasilia
The Cast
The Ventriloquist
Life after Death
The Hands
The Prism
The God
Freedom of Speech
A Picture of Otto
Fingers
The Dogs Are Eating Your Mother
Red
Notable poems
There are multiple poems in the collection that address their relationship, and many are directly addressed to Plath herself.
"Fulbright Scholars"
"Fulbright Scholars" is the 1st poem in the book and is told as a memory of Hughes'.[10] In the poem he describes seeing a photo of that year's batch of Fulbright scholars. Many believe that this poem was about Plath, as the two met when she was in England as part of the Fulbright program.[11]
"Wuthering Heights"
"Wuthering Heights" is the 26th poem in the book and it shares a title with the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. More importantly, Plath has a poem of the same title, released in her 1971 collection Crossing the Water, which Hughes released for Plath posthumously. Some have claimed that Hughes' poem is a direct response to Plath's Wuthering Heights.[12]
"The Blue Flannel Suit"
"The Blue Flannel Suit" is the 30th poem in the book and is amongst those most recognized to be about Plath. In the poem, Hughes describes the blue flannel suit Plath was wearing on the first day she began teaching at Smith College in 1957.
Reception
After her death in 1963, Plath's wish to leave behind a meaningful legacy was fulfilled when her Ariel collection of poetry, and her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, were hailed as masterpieces of modern feminism, causing her to become a feminist icon in the 1970s. Hughes's apparent wish for redemption is realized in this autobiographical collection of poetry. The literary response to the publication of this collection was one of sensation. It was unknown at the time that Hughes was suffering from a terminal disease that may have prompted this unexpected release.
Hughes's Birthday Letters topped the best-seller lists immediately. This was arguably due to public fascination with a persistent mystery surrounding the lives of the two icons. Within a short period of time the collection was awarded the Forward Poetry Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry and the Whitbread Poetry and Whitbread British Book of the Year prizes.
