In the three poems we have studied for

In the three poems we have studied for the Trial HSC remember Hughes purports to represent truth, recognising it is a constantly fluid state of uncertainty, instability and ambiguity. There can never be a � true representation of reality as perspective, time, memory and language tarnish truth. This notion resounds throughout these poems which assert that the possibilities of representation are affected by perspective are limitless. When Plath was at Cambridge, she hired a horse to ride in the country side. ‘Sam’ was supposed to be a placid old horse, but he bolted with Sylvia on his back. Plath refers to the exhilarating ride on ‘Sam’ in her poems Ariel and Whiteness I remember. Sam By Ted Hughes

Sam is Hughes retrospective interpretation of an event in Plath’s life before she met him and which she had represented in the poem Whiteness I remember. Hughes’ poem itself contains what can be interpreted as conflicting perspectives of her personality and when read in conjunction with Whiteness I remember reveals interesting similarities and differences.

This poem is one of a few that can be used for a direct contrast of perspectives as both poets have written about it. Recounting his observation of the event, in ‘Sam’, Hughes focuses initially on its physical details. We are given a description of the horse, reminiscent of Hughes’ numerous poems about animals, with their carefully observed details: ‘the white calm stallion’. The location is precisely noted too, ‘down the white line of the Barton Road’, as is the physical violence Plath endured as she lost control: ‘you slewed under his neck’. Such detail exemplifies the truth of the poem’s report. Added to it, is the imagined danger and horror experienced by the rider. -“True confessions? ” Ted Hughes’ Birthday Letters BARRY SPURR

Alludes to Plath’s poem Ariel. However the horse in this poem is not the mythical horse of Ariel, Plath’s poem is more obscure, poetic. The structure of the opening stanza is the most sustained of the four stanzas thereby contributing to the impression of headlong flight. Was Plath the cause of his flight? It was all of a piece to you That was your horse, the white calm stallion, Sam, Decided he'd had enough And started home at a gallop. I can live Your incredulity, your certainty That this was it. You lost your stirrups. He galloped Straight down the white line of the Barton Road. The repetition of “you” and “your” creates an hypnotic effect of intimacy and wonder juxtaposing the ambivalence of adoration and awe with resentment and accusation.

Hughes accuses her of glamorising her loss of control. As the stanza continues Hughes builds the momentum and pace with a series of commas as punctuation and an enjambment. You lost your reins, you lost your seat Sense of loss- eventually It was grab his neck and adore him she loses him and her own Or free-fall. You slewed under his neck, life. An upside-down jockey with nothing Between you and the cataract of macadam, Macadam is a tarsealed road That horribly hard, swift river, surface. But the propeller terrors of his front legs And the clangour of the iron shoes, so far beneath you. Onomatopoeic sounds reinforce the drumbeat of the horse’s hooves providing verisimilitude, immediacy and intimacy.

The rapid pace of the poem is arrested by bewildered rhetorical questions of wonderment and amazement. Is the tone accusatory? Luck was already there. Did you have a helmet? How did you cling on? Baby monkey Sylvia’s poems had Using your arms and legs for clinging steel. a life of their own. What saved you? Maybe your poems Saved themselves, slung under that plunging neck, Hammocked in your body over the switchback road. You saw only blur. And a cyclist's shock-mask, Fallen, dragging his bicycle over him, protective. Survival instinct-maybe it was her conviction to poetry that gave her the will to live?

Allusions to her mental state later in life. Element of fate? I can feel your bounced and dangling anguish, Hugging what was left of your steerage. How did you hang on? You couldn't have done it. Something in you not you did it for itself. You clung on, probably near unconscious. Till he walked into his stable. That gallop Instinct for survival. Rhetorical questions.

Hughes seems to be summing up their relationship. Evocative use of verbs and repetition Was practice, but not enough, and quite useless. When I jumped a fence you strangled me One giddy moment, then fell off, Flung yourself off and under my feet to trip me And tripped me and lay dead. Over in a flash. What does this poem say about Plath’s survival instinct? How did she react when Hughes tried to end the marriage? The ride did not translate into a lesson in her real life. Hughes compresses all of his experiences with her into ‘one giddy moment’ ‘over in a flash’.

In your study for the Trials remember… Birthday Letters is Hughes’ attempt at "opening a direct and inner contact" with his late and emotionally disturbed wife Sylvia Plath. Victoria Laurie describes the poems as a "a collection of elegiac tender and harrowing poetry addressed to his dead wife. “ Through Birthday Letters, Hughes asserts the facts and memories of his life and relationship belong to him and not to the world or the media. He says "I hope that everyone owns the facts of his or her own life. " In this sense, as well as being a personal address to Plath, Birthday Letters is also Hughes' attempt to own his truth.