Birthday Letters Birthday Letters Birthday Letters, published in 1998, is a collection of poetry by English poet and children's writer Ted Hughes. Released only months before Hughes's death, the collection won multiple prestigious literary awards. 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. 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
Letters to a Young Poet whose quiet demeanor proved unable to bear the strain of a military education and life. Rilke did not continue his military education. At the time that Kappus learned this he was inclined toward writing and was not very keen on the notion of dedicating his life to the military. Kappus then decided to write to Rilke for advice. When Kappus wrote his first letter to Rilke he asked for Rilke to provide a critique of his poetry. Rilke provided the young Kappus very little in criticism or in suggestions for his improvement as a poet. Instead, Rilke discouraged Kappus from