Sir, - My sincerest compliments and thanks to Seamus Heaney for his insightful and powerful review of Birthday Letters. It is a real pleasure to read informed, intelligent and deeply felt criticism of this sort. Heaney did a masterful job of reading the poems as poetry first and blending his commentary on the work with judicious and insightful biographical and psychological remarks. It is to be hoped that his review will set the tone for raising the discussion of this important book above the psycho-political soap opera that all too much PlathHughes discussion has been mired in. - Yours, etc.,Gregory Luce,Hyattsville, Maryland,USA.