Frieda Hughes, the 56-year-old daughter of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, has spoken of how she felt her parents were "stolen" by literary history, and of her lifelong fear of being influenced by their work. Sitting in her Welsh farmhouse, surrounded by her paintings, she discussed her first book of poetry and the poem "Birds", which she wrote about her father's collection "Birthday Letters" – poems he wrote in response to Plath's suicide.
The poem, she explained, describes a penguin nursing the egg his wife has left him, and skuas that kill and feed on baby penguins. When her father read it, he said he thought it was about her. "I look at it now and think he's right," she admitted.
Hughes hid her poetry from her father and everyone else for years, fearing her voice would be contaminated by her parents' legacy. "I had a fear of similarity," she said. She avoided reading their work until her mid-30s, and only turned fully to poetry and painting after being diagnosed with chronic fatigue at 34. "We only have one life," she said, explaining her decision to follow her own path.
Her father, she recalled, was encouraging and impartial when she finally showed him her poems. He divided them into piles of good, bad and indifferent. She also remembered that he never said a bad word about her mother, presenting her as angelic. "I felt my parents were stolen," she said, reflecting on how public perception overshadowed their personal lives.
Hughes, who now keeps owls and other animals, expressed admiration for her mother's work, particularly "Ariel". Her own poetry, she insisted, was never written with her parents in mind. "If that thought even crossed my mind, it would paralyse me," she said.
