He has a health and hugeness … the more he writes poems, the more he writes poems. He knows all about the habits of animals and takes me amid cows and coots. I am writing poems, and they are better and stronger than anything I have ever done; here is a small one about one night we went into the moonlight to find owls:
METAMORPHOSIS
Haunched like a faun, he hooed
from grove of moon-glint and fen-frost
until all owls in the twigged forest
flapped black to look and brood
on the call this man made.
No sound but a drunken coot
lurching home along river bank;
stars hung water-sunk, so a rank
of double star-eyes lit
boughs where those owls sat.
An arena of yellow eyes
watched the changing shape he cut,
saw hoof harden from foot, saw sprout
goat horns; heard how god rose
and galloped woodward in that guise.
Daily I am full of poems; my joy whirls in tongues of words…. I feel a growing strength. I do not merely idolize, I see right into the core of him … I know myself, in vigor and prime and growing, and know I am strong enough to keep myself whole, no matter what….
… I accept these days and these livings, for I am growing and shall be a woman beyond women for my strength. I have never been so exultant, the joy of using all my wit and womanly wisdom is a joy beyond words. What a huge humor we have, what running strength!
We had dinner last week at Luke Myers’, a fine American boy-poet whose poems are [as] fine in their way as Ted’s—no precocious hushed literary circles for us—we write, read, talk plain and straight and produce from the fiber of our hearts and bones. Luke’s girl was an artist, and I fell in love with her right away. Ted knows music, so we listen to Beethoven and Bartok in record shops for free, and I’m making dinner for Ted and a mutual Jewish friend, Iko, next week, and we’ll go listen to Iko’s Beethoven. I am happy, in the midst of all jeopardy, and this spring in Cambridge, with Ted here even for a little before he goes off to Spain and then Australia, is utter joy. I am beyond jealousy, which is something I thought I’d never come to: because myself is fun enough and joy enough, even in sorrow, to make a life! Please think of me, accepting sorrow and pain, but living in the midst of a singing joy which is the best of Hopkins, Thomas, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Blake, Donne, and all the poets we love together.
Your own loving
Sivvy
APRIL 21, 1956
Dearest of Mothers,
I only hope the paradoxical joy of my being and intense sense of living as richly and deeply as ever in the world may shed some power and solace in the middle of your dark sad time. I shall tell you most amazing news.
The best thing is my joining Varsity! The Cambridge weekly paper! Here, enclosed, is my first feature and the two upper sketches are mine! The Fulbright commission should go wild with delight. Already I am assigned interviews, fashion stories, sketching at a horse race! I dearly love the boys on the paper, and as there are only two girl reporters, I feel like Marguerite Higgins—
Guess what: the feature editor has invited me to drive to London on Tuesday with him to a large reception for Bulganin and Khrushchev at the Claridge Hotel! I am drunk with amazement. Shall go wrapped in bunting of stars and stripes! Your daughter drinking in the same room with the heads of Russia!
All gathers in incredible joy. I cannot stop writing poems! They come better and better. They come from the vocabulary of woods and animals and earth that Ted is teaching me. We walked 15 miles yesterday through woods, field, and fen, and came home through moonlit Granchester and fields of sleeping cows.
I cook steaks, trout on my gas ring, and we eat well. We drink sherry in the garden and read poems; we quote on and on: he says a line of Thomas or Shakespeare and says: “Finish!” We romp through words. I learn new words and use them in poems. My god. Listen: here are two lyrics; they are meant to be said aloud, and they are from my joy in discovering a world I never knew: all nature.
Sylvia’s fashion assignment for the Cambridge Varsity
Newspaper clipping of Sylvia modeling for the Cambridge Varsity
ODE FOR TED
From under crunch of my man’s boot
green oat-sprouts jut;
he names a lapwing, starts rabbits in a rout,
lagging it most nimble
to sprigged hedge of bramble,
stalks red fox, shrewd stoat.
Loam-humps, he says, moles shunt
up from delved worm-haunt;
blue fur, moles have; hafting chalk-hulled flint
he with rock splits open
knobbed quartz; flayed colors ripen
rich, brown, sudden in sunglint.
For his least look, scent acres yield:
each finger-furrowed field
heaves forth stalk, leaf, fruit-nubbed emerald;
bright grain sprung so rarely
he hauls to his will early;
at his hand’s staunch hest, birds build.
Ringdoves roost well within his wood,
shirr songs to suit which mood
he saunters in; how but most glad
could be this adam’s woman
when all earth his words do summon
leaps to laud such man’s blood!
SONG
Through fen and farmland walking
with my high mighty love
I saw slow flocked cows move
white hulks on their day’s cruising;
milk-sap sprang for their grazing.
Spruce air was bright for looking:
most far in blue, aloft,
clouds steered a burnished drift;
larks’ nip and tuck arising
came in for my love’s praising.
Sheen of the noon sun striking
took my heart as if
it were a green-tipped leaf
kindled by such rare seizing
into an ardent blazing.
In a nest of spiders plucking
silk of their frail trade
we made our proper bed;
under yellow willows’ hazing
I lay for my love’s pleasing.
No thought was there of tricking,
yet the artful spider spun
a web for my one man
till at the day’s flawed closing
no call could work his rising.
Now far from that ransacking
I range in my unease
and my whole wonder is
that frost’s felled all worth prizing
and the early year turned freezing
like the bleak shape of my losing.
And these are for you to say aloud on your birthday. And remember to buy a lovely suitcase! Please let me know you are coming, so I can start making reservations. This is Eden here, and the people are all shining, and I must show it to you!
All my love—
Your singing girl, Sivvy
APRIL 23, 1956
Dearest Mother,
Well, finally the blundering American Express sent me your letter from Rome … our minds certainly work on the same track!
… I have already planned to stay in London three nights and have written to reserve a room for us; we’ll just eat and talk the day you come, but for the next two I’ll get some theater tickets and we’ll plan jaunts to flowering parks, Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square … walking, strolling, feeding pigeons and sunning ourselves like happy clams. Then, to Cambridge, where I have already reserved a room for you for two nights…. I have made a contract with one of my husky men to teach me how to manage a punt before you come, so you shall step one afternoon from your room at the beautiful Garden House Hotel right onto the Cam and be boated up to Granchester through weeping willows for tea in an orchard! Worry about nothing. Just let me know your predilections and it shall be accomplished….
You, alone, of all, have
had crosses that would cause many a stronger woman to break under the never-ceasing load. You have borne daddy’s long, hard death and taken on a man’s portion in your work; you have fought your own ulcer attacks, kept us children sheltered, happy, rich with art and music lessons, camp and play; you have seen me through that black night when the only word I knew was No and when I thought I could never write or think again; and, you have been brave through your own operation. Now, just as you begin to breathe, this terrible slow, dragging pain comes upon you, almost as if it would be too easy to free you so soon from the deepest, most exhausting care and giving of love.
… know with a certain knowing that you deserve, too, to be with the loved ones who can give you strength in your trouble: Warren and myself. Think of your trip here as a trip to the heart of strength in your daughter who loves you more dearly than words can say. I am waiting for you, and your trip shall be for your own soul’s health and growing. You need … a context where all burdens are not on your shoulders, where some loving person comes to heft the hardest, to walk beside you. Know this, and know that it is right you should come. You need to imbibe power and health and serenity to return to your job …
I feel with all my joy and life that these are qualities I can give you, from the fulness and brimming of my heart. So come, and slowly we will walk through green gardens and marvel at this strange and sweet world.
Your own loving sivvy
APRIL 23, 1956
Dearest Warren,
This letter is only for you: I am asking you some things to help me in. First, I have hacked through a hard vacation, shared really only the best parts with mother, not the racking ones (it is so easy to give merely the impression of rich joy here and not the roots of sorrow and hurt from which it comes) and am now coming into the full of my power: I am writing poetry as I never have before; and it is the best, because I am strong in myself and in love with the only man in the world who is my match and whom I shall no doubt never see after this summer as he is going to Australia. He is worth you, the very first one, and worth me and all the strength and health I have. Maybe mother will show you one or two poems I’ve sent her about him; his name is Ted Hughes …
… I hunger so to share some of my life with you, to learn of yours, even though the obligations of my philosophy course are now on my neck, I write: one has to make time. I love you beyond words. You and mother are my whole family, and now you and I must give of ourselves to make her life rich and radiant, in the midst of her great sorrow. I so hope you can come to Europe this summer. My most proud love on your birthday and coming of age!
Sivvy
P.S…. I am living like mad and would like to find my voice in writing. I’m sketching again, too: stilted, stiff, but fun. Oh, Warren, how I long to see you again; we can teach each other so much by our respective lives; I am finding a growing self and soul of which I am becoming proud in a good, honest sense. The one sin in this world is exploiting other people or cheating and fooling oneself; it’s a lifelong fight to forge a vital life; I wish us both the guts and grace to do it on your birthday and my half-birthday. I’ll get Ted to read your horoscope! He does that, too!
Love again,
Sivvy
{April 26 was my fiftieth birthday; on that day our beloved Grammy lapsed into a coma, and she died three days later.}
APRIL 26, 1956
Dearest Mother,
Happy birthday! I am thinking of you at this very moment and hoping that in the midst of your present trial, you can spare the energy and moment to be glad, most utterly, that you were born to carry on grammy’s spirit and flesh and to spread the blood and being of our line to Warren and me. We have had such joys in our lives that it is only fitting, somehow, we be chastened and strengthened by bearing sorrow. If anyone asked me what time of my life was most invaluable, I would say those six terrible months at McLean; for, by re-forging my soul, I am a woman now the like of which I could never have dreamed …
Last night, at the posh Claridge Hotel, with the hammer and sickle waving over the door, your daughter shook hands with Bulganin! Oh, mother, such a time! Read the April 24th write-ups in the papers! The biggest diplomatic crush of all time! I stayed the full two hours from 6:30 to 8:30 and gorged on more black caviar than I have ever seen in my life, drank Russia’s health in vodka, and met the most amazing people … Rubbed elbows with Anthony Eden and Clement Attlee, was introduced as “Miss Plath” by red-clad major domo to Madame and Mr. Malik, Soviet ambassadors who threw the party. Met many mayors: by accident the Mayor of Northampton, England, who, by coincidence, was going to entertain the mayor from my Northampton in a few weeks; had picture taken with the lovely, red-fezzed Commissioner of Nigeria and his beautiful, laughing Negro wife: both spoke perfect English and understood my childlike delight at the whole affair. Saw Khrushchev and Bulganin from inches in a press of people that would have crushed them to death had it not been for muscular Russian bodyguards. Bulganin, a dear, white-bearded little man with clear blue eyes, went about like a small plump ship, waving two fingers, smiling, shaking hands and having his interpreters translate the good wishes of all who spoke to him. I found myself shaking his hand and begging, “Please do come to visit Cambridge,” which words were repeated by his interpreters. The crowd broke into “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” and one wise-cracking British radio man hissed in my ear: “They’ll never let you back in the States if you sing that!” Had several short, good talks with Russian officers who were learning English, even mentioned Dostoevsky and ended up toasting Russo-American relations in vodka with a charming blond chap working in commerce: both of us agreeing that if we could meet each other as simple people who wanted to have families and jobs and a good life, there would never be any wars, because we would make such friends.
Now, back in Cambridge, it seems impossible to settle down to work. Had my first supervision Tuesday morning with my brilliant woman (who reminds me so much of Dr. B.) and we had a fine, spirited hour, discussing Plato’s Gorgias. My mind is whetted; I have never been so keen, so eager to learn…. Am also working on a book of poems which I shall submit just before you come in June to a board of judges (5), including the best poets and most congenial to my style: Louise Bogan, Richard Wilbur, Rolfe Humphries, May Sarton, and one other. If this does not pass, I shall write more in the summer and turn it in for the Yale Series of Younger Poets next winter.
Ted is teaching me about horoscopes, how to cook herring roes, and we are going to the world’s biggest circus tonight. God, such a life! …
… If you have a chance, could you send over my Joy of Cooking? It’s the one book I really miss!
Love and joy from your caviar-ful daughter,
Sivvy
SUNDAY MORNING
APRIL 29, 1956
Dearest most wonderful of mothers,
I’m so struck full of joy and love I can scarcely stop a minute from dancing, writing poems, cooking and living. I sleep a bare eight hours a night and wake springing up merry with the sun. Outside my window now is our green garden with a pink cherry tree right under my window in full bloom, thick with thrushes caroling.
… I have written the seven best poems of my life which make the rest look like baby-talk. I am learning and mastering new words each day, and drunker than Dylan, harder than Hopkins, younger than Yeats in my saying. Ted reads in his strong voice; is my best critic, as I am his.
My philosophy supervisor, Doctor Krook, is more than a miracle! She took me on an extra half hour last week, and I’m in medias res of Plato, marveling at the dialectic method, whetting my mind like a blue-bladed knife. Such joy.
Bodily, I’ve never been healthier: radiance and love just surge out of me like a sun. I can’t wait to set you down in its rays. Think, I shall devote two whole weeks of my life to taking utter care and very special tendering of you. I’ve already reserved London and Cambridge rooms … We’ll leave about the 22nd … for Paris, where I’ll see you through your first two or three days and get
all set up for you so you’ll know what you want there, and then I’ll take off for a month of writing in Spain on the south coast … [getting] tan, doing nothing but writing, sunning and cooking. Maybe even learning to catch fish!
Ted is up here this week, and I have become a woman to make you proud. It came over me while we were listening to Beethoven, the sudden shock and knowledge that although this is the one man in the world for me, although I am using every fiber of my being to love him, even so, I am true to the essence of myself, and I know who that self is … and will live with her through sorrow and pain, singing all the way, even in anguish and grief, the triumph of life over death and sickness and war and all the flaws of my dear world….
I know this with a sure strong knowing to the tips of my toes, and having been on the other side of life like Lazarus, I know that my whole being shall be one song of affirmation and love all my life long. I shall praise the Lord and the crooked creatures He has made. My life shall be a constant finding of new ways and words in which to do this.
Ted is incredible, mother … wears always the same black sweater and corduroy jacket with pockets full of poems, fresh trout and horoscopes. In his horoscope book, imagine, it says people born in Scorpio have “squashed” noses!
… How I cook on one gas ring! Ted is the first man who really has a love of food … He stalked in the door yesterday with a packet of little pink shrimp and four fresh trout. I made a nectar of Shrimp Newburg with essence of butter, cream, sherry and cheese; had it on rice with the trout. It took us three hours to peel all the little tiny shrimp, and Ted just lay groaning by the hearth after the meal with utter delight, like a huge Goliath.