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 reading criticism and advised him to trust his inner judgment, commenting that "Nobody can advise you and help you. Nobody. There is only one way—Go into yourself." Rilke provided advice that inspired Kappus to search broader issues of intimacy and the nature of beauty and art, as well as probing philosophical and existential questions. The letters address personal issues that Kappus had apparently revealed to Rilke; ranging from atheism, loneliness, and career choices. The collection does not include Kappus' letters to Rilke, though the original German collection does include one sonnet of Kappus' own that Rilke sent back to him