Often, however, he was more subtle in his effects. In "Sam," for instance, the stanzaic breaks give the text a clear structure, with the very short final stanza adding a definite bite to the poem. The longer first stanza tells the story of Plath on a runaway horse, this is then commented upon and analyzed, and finally Hughes draws a four-line comparison to the way he was treated by Plath: "you strangled me... flung yourself off and under my feet." The abrupt turn and end of this poem is used to elicit a specific response of shocked sympathy from the reader, which marks only one of Hughes attempts in Birthday Letters to exonerate himself for Plath's suicide.
Neither of the two above-mentioned poems are entirely consistent in tone, however, and the length of their lines and/or stanzaic structure can of course be read in several ways. In "The Shot," however, there appears to be a deliberate conflict set up in both the form and the content of...
Lines of greatly differing length appear in sharp juxtaposition, as the speaker contemplates what could have been vs. what was:
In my position, the right witchdoctor
Might have caught you in flight with his bare hands,
Tossed you, cooling, one hand to the other,
Godless, happy, quieted.
I managed
A wisp of your hair, your ring, your watch, your nightgown."
The lines referring to the hypothetical witchdoctor seem to diminish in an almost calming fashion, while the markedly shorter "I managed" marks another abrupt turn in the poem, and the length of the last quoted line with its percussive "your" s seems to challenge this false calmness and expose it for the internal tempest the speaker witnessed. In this way, not only the direct meaning of the poem but also the specific representation of its ideas and language are meant to communicate with the reader.
