"The Blue Flannel Suit" is a poem by Ted Hughes published in 1998 in his book Birthday Letters.
The 30th of 88 poems in the collection, "The Blue Flannel Suit" is one of several in the series explicitly about his wife Sylvia Plath.
[2] In the poem, Hughes describes the blue flannel suit Plath wore for her first day of teaching at Smith College in 1957, just prior to her 25th birthday.
Plath found it difficult to both teach and have enough time and energy to write [3] and in the middle of 1958, the couple moved to Boston.
Plath took a job as a receptionist in the psychiatric unit of Massachusetts General Hospital and became involved in the local poetry scene.