Archives fever has set in which has led to some very terrible sleeps recently; mind aflame with the information it is taking in. Restlessness, wandering unfocused around home and work. And driving my car. Stay off the roads! Hell, and the sidewalks, too. I think I am broken. Heather Clark sent me a bottle of port and I am cracking that bottle open tonight. The files received in recent days run the length of Sylvia Plath's life from Winthrop (David Freeman) to Wellesley (Wilbury Crockett) to Northampton (Sally Rosenthal Brody) to Cambridge (Kay Burton et. al.) to London and North Tawton and London (Beckers, Frankfort, Secker-Walkers). There are a slew of still unread files and thank goodness the weekend is nearly upon us. Reading Jillian Becker's correspondence and memories has been eye-opening. She's often very funny. She is incredibly opinionated (negatively) about the Hughes clan. Reading this material shames her Giving Up , though it I am sure I am unfairly critica...

Even after all this time, I'm still digesting "Last Letter" but finding it easier to read now that the hoopla has died down a bit. The news stories on its publications were just atrocious and sometimes it is hard to shake initial feeds, impressions, reports, and rushed judgments. As a result, though, what was reported has to be discredited largely, and ignored & forgotten. Looking back to those long gone halcyon days of early-to-mid October 2010 and those news stories ... I can't read them anymore. They, in fact, they quite privately bore me...(in those days I regarded forgetfulness as an essential part of survival). I'd like to see the manuscripts of the poems, all of them. Hughes's handwriting is difficult at best, but a little time with them and I think much more could be known about the poem. That being said, this post isn't looking at the whole poem, but just a little bit of it. First, though, with this archive of material now available, this te...

These are some online articles that discuss Ted Hughes' recently published poem "Last Letter", which as you know make a big splash and dominated our lives in October. Some of them are older but in the wake of the hullabaloo they got a bit buried... Kay Loftus of the Boston University Quad wrote "'The Last Letter' of Ted Hughes" which appeared on November 7. The New Statesman 's Lucian Robinson posted "Ted Hughes's 'Last letter': the response" on November 22, 2010. From November 28, 2010, there is Peter Steinfels Commonweal piece "Is light the new dark?" which may be one of the first times Harry Potter and Sylvia Plath were mentioned in the same breath? If anyone is at all interested, I am working as and when I can on my own reaction to "Last Letter" and hope to have it posted here shortly...

Mark Ford at the New York Review of Books Blog examines "Ted Hughes' 'Last Letter'" to Sylvia Plath in a post today. I like that Ford places "Last Letter" in context to where it might have appeared in Birthday Letters , by discussing it in connection with the poem that likely would have preceded it, "The Inscription." It's an honor for Gail Crowther's guest post on the Daniel Huws event in Mytholmroyd to be cited and for the blog to be referenced.

Published today, Michael Rosen has a long piece on Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes on the New Statesman 's website (and maybe in the periodical itself, but who can find a bloody copy in Boston?). Read " A Minotaur in the Maze ", on Ted Hughes' poem "Last Letter".

Over at the New Statesman blog, read two responses to Ted Hughes' "Last Letter" to Sylvia Plath by the poet Michael Rosen and Plath's dear friend Elizabeth Sigmund.

Al Alvarez has posted a short follow-up on the Guardian Books Blog " Ted Hughes's 'Last Letter' to Sylvia Plath: Second thoughts ." The subtitle being, "On reflection, I realise I wasn't harsh enough on the poet when I considered the poem." I can see Alvarez wiping his hands clean and I suspect that the haze of the first impressions craze has died down and we're moving into possibly the more contemplative phase.

Al Alvarez's reaction to Ted Hughes' "Last Letter" appeared on The Guardian 's website a short while ago. The article, from what I can tell & was told, was in Saturday's Review section of said newspaper. Elisabeth Gray's "Wish I had a Sylvia Plath" was reviewed by TheaterMania.com and by BroadwayWorld.com . I saw "Three Women" twice on Saturday and have a review of it; but with all this other news going on will wait a day or so to post it. Emily Banas at Indiana University Northwest has written the following news release: IU Northwest English professor William Buckley publishes Volume Three of Plath Profiles . You will find the announcement to which I refer in the title of this post within the news release.

Robert McCrum of The Observer reports on Ted Hughes' poem "Last Letter." Click here to read "Ted Hughes's final lines to Sylvia Plath bring closure to a tragic tale." *** Update: Paul Vallely at the Independent also contemplates Ted Hughes' "Last Letter" to Sylvia Plath in his " A last letter seared in fierce flames "

The Guardian Books section recently posted a Podcast in which they discuss, among other topics, National Poetry Day and the "difficulties surrounding the publication of a newly discovered Ted Hughes poem written immediately after Sylvia Plath's death." Written immediately? Seriously?

The Independent 's Cahal Milmo writes " The Ted Hughes lost poem: Who wants to live forever? " This is almost a moralistic "high road" piece of journalism which calls into question to appropriateness of publishing unpublished or unfinished works by dead authors from their archives or estates. However, the article concludes on a note of support I completely agree with by Anthony Thwaite who says, "There is always a difficult judgment to be made in these cases. In the case of Ted Hughes, if Carol Hughes has said that it is time for this poem to be published then that is right and we should be happy about it." I couldn't agree more. The article includes links to other related articles such as John Walsh's " Hughes's inner turmoil laid bare " and the Independent 's "leading article" " Shock of the new ." Walsh's article leaves me wanting; he simply misreads the poems or has misread accounts in memoirs an...

Hear more of Ted Hughes' "Last Letter" to Sylvia Plath read by Melvyn Bragg on BBC Devon .

Watch the Channel 4's news story on the recent Ted Hughes poem on Sylvia Plath!

The BBC Reports " Ted Hughes poem on Sylvia Plath's death published ." "A poem in which Ted Hughes describes the night his first wife Sylvia Plath took her own life in 1963 has been published for the first time." The poem, called "Last Letter" appears in the New Statesman and was culled from the recent British Library acquisition of Ted Hughes' papers which opened for research earlier this year. The BBC report says, "The poem begins: 'What happened that night? Your final night.' "It then details, in chronological order, the last weekend of Plath's life, in February 1963, when she and Hughes were still married but living apart. "It begins with Plath sending Hughes a letter, which is intended to arrive after the weekend, but is delivered early. "The poem goes on to describe Hughes rushing to her house, where Plath reassures him that everything is fine. He leaves and she ultimately takes her own life." See the Ne...