`Letters to Ted’ is a remarkable collection of poems in memory of the late Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, with whom Daniel Weissbort struck up a friendship, both literary and personal, during their student days in 1950s Cambridge. Swift-moving, by turns contemplative and dramatic in their narration, these spare, poignant, often diary-like poems conjure up a rich history of incidents and memories, creating a moving portrait of a great poet and a lasting friendship.

Daniel Weissbort was born in 1935. He studied History and did graduate work in the politics of post-Stalin Soviet literature. He has published translations of several Russian poets, including Nikolai Zabolotsky, and a study of Joseph Brodsky, `From Russian with Love’. Formerly Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa, where he directed the Translation Workshop, he now lives in London and continues to edit `Modern Poetry in Translation’, the journal which he co-founded with Ted Hughes in 1965.