Poetic Prize Winners Part II-BIRTHDAY LETTERS

A year before his death, Ted Hughes, a Poet Laureate and one of England's greatest poets would publish a collection of poetry that would cause the world to pause and rethink about not only his own poetry, but also the powerful poetics works of Sylvia Plath. To read Birthday Letters is to step inside, so to speak, and experience not only their first meeting,a marriage, children and marriage breakdown, but to glean an understanding of the forces that drove two very powerful poetic minds. In 1998, when Ted Hughes accepted the Forward Prize For Poetry, Hughes explained:

'My book Birthday Letters is a gathering of the occasions on which I tried to open a direct, private, inner contact with my first wife- not thinking to make a poem, thinking mainly to evoke her presence to myself, and to feel her there listening. Except for a handful, I never thought of publishing these pieces until this last year-when suddenly I realized I had to publish them, no matter what the consequences.'

These words reveal something about Hughes; Hughes had interests in the occult, and psychic powers. Ariel's Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the story of Birthday Letters by Erica Wagner confirms that in fact, both Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes delved into the so called 'other world'. Unlike many artists throughout history, they shared and nurtured the influences that would lead them to write poetry. There was no opposition or competition between them, and although Ted Hughes was published first, both stood on equal ground in their art. In their personal lives however, Plath's ground was marked with chaos and grief. Birthday Letters takes us into that chaos, points to the death of her father as the defining element of her poetic drive. Sylvia Plath's father died suddenly, and her mother prevented the children from going to the funeral in attempt to save them from overwhelming emotion. Critics of Plath's works suggest that the unresolved grief was one of the destructive forces that lead her to take her own life in 1963, and it is also the force that lead her to write great poetry.

What is it that makes a work of writing great art? Why does one book win a prize while the other retires on the short-list? These questions are not so easy to answer. One thing is clear however, Birthday Letters takes us intimately into very powerful human territory using poetry as a vehicle. When language is used to 'get at' and render universal human truths and dilemas, with authenticity and beauty-- that is great art and that is Birthday Letters.

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