Unseen Poem by Ted Hughes Details Sylvia Plath's Death

Posted: Oct 6, 2010 4:30 PM

LONDON (AP) - The New Statesman says it's publishing a
previously unseen poem by Ted Hughes that details the night his estranged wife, Sylvia Plath, killed herself.

Hughes, a Briton, and Plath, an American, are considered among the 20th century's greatest poets. Their stormy relationship has been the focus of decades of critical attention.

Plath earned a cult following through the novel "The Bell Jar," whose descriptions of a suicidal young woman foreshadowed her own death, which followed only a month after its publication in 1963.

Plath's death shadowed Hughes for the rest of his life and he made only fleeting references to it in his own published work. The poem's discovery is of major importance to literature and it was read out on Britain's Channel 4 Wednesday.

Topics: Unseen, Poem, by, Ted, Hughes, Details, Sylvia, Plath's, Death