stanza my stone

poetrysince1912:

—Sylvia Plath, Poetry, March 1962

Plath’s “Love Letter” appeared in March 1962. Her son, Nicholas, was born in January 1962. Today, Letters of Note has reprinted a letter that Nicholas’s father, the poet Ted Hughes, wrote to Nicholas when he was 24 years old:

“…When you realise you’ve gone a few weeks and haven’t felt that awful struggle of your childish self—struggling to lift itself out of its inadequacy and incompetence—you’ll know you’ve gone some weeks without meeting new challenge, and without growing, and that you’ve gone some weeks towards losing touch with yourself.”