i borrowed birthday letters and i know i must have said this before but i think ted hughes takes the cake for me.

alright, so 2 of the women he went out with eventually killed themselves. was he that exasperating? or merely fatally attracted to crazy women. whatever it is, he doesn't deserve the feminist claptrap calling him a chauvunist, chipping his name off plath's gravestones and shouting "murder" at him. so he had an affair. if you're going to judge a man on that many men are going to fail and plath was probably exasperating to begin with.

and all this for a man who gave up writing for a while so that he could help plath publish ariel, to ensure her legacy, who sat her down and taught her how to write and would give her little writing exercises. is there nothing in this world to be grateful about? what pray, was all the fuss about? that plath was brutally honest and so we should give her a clap? brutally honest about what? that she was a spoilt little girl who didn't feel like living if not perpetually in extremis? and who, pray has to continue living and dealing with all the shit. perhaps i simply don't understand "what it feels like". oh well, being insensitive. crud.

2 suicides later, and all the little transactions of love, little chance encounters collected in this book. no one remembers all that shit if they don't love someone. haha. i'm biased i know. just that men get short shrift sometimes. they have fed your mom to the dogs indeed.

and in the end, plath must have been at her most adorable happy, hopeful, and waiting for her baby.

You're

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark, as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools' Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.