News at Eleven: It is, like many of the second-person addresses

in Birthday Letters, a prosy poem, part diary, part straightforward narrative, punctured with flashes of vivid metaphor. The two women in [Ted] Hughes's life, Sylvia [Plath] and Susan [Alliston], are described as twin needles embroidering his internal organs: ". . . piercing and tugging/At their tapestry, their bloody tattoo/Somewhere behind my navel."

It's no wonder most commentators have focused on the narrative: It tells a terrible story.

from The Globe and Mail: What's a poem? Sometimes the question doesn't matter

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