The first syllables Sylvia Plath ever spoke to Ted Hughes were lifted from a poem that he had written and that she had memorized. '''I did it, I''', she called to him over the dance music at a crowded party at Cambridge University - a launch party for the first issue of a college literary magazine, St. Botolph's Review, in which Hughes's work appeared prominently. 'You like?' he responded, and led her into a quieter room where they could say more.

That playful exchange was an overture to the distinctive creative partnership they established soon afterwards. Working side by side, they developed a dynamic of mutual influence that produced the poems we read today. This aspect of their bond can be tracked in their poetry from the months of their courtship through the years of their marriage and separation. And it can also be found in the poetry Hughes published in the year he died, in two volumes addressed to Plath: Birthday Letters and the limited edition Howls & Whispers.