An episode from 11/2/21: Tonight, I read a letter written by the British poet Ted Hughes, to a friend and critic, Al Alvarez, in November of 1971. At the time, Alvarez was publishing an intimate (and to Hughes's mind, exploitative) account of the 1963 suicide of Hughes's wife, the poet Sylvia Plath. The letter can be found in The Letters of Ted Hughes, pages 321-326. I use this letter as a starting point to wonder why we treat the famous, or just the infamous, the way we do, and how, fifty years later, we continue to lap up the gossip surrounding well-known people. Don’t forget to support Human Voices Wake Us on Substack, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to [email protected].

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