The SYLVIA PLATH Forum

Welcome to the Sylvia Plath Forum which began January 1998 following the surprise publication of Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters. The forum is moderated and maintained by Elaine Connell.
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    Contributions: October 1999

    An analysis of Sylvia Plath's poetry is included in a book soon to be published in the United States by the Greenwood Publishing Group: WHITE WOMEN WRITING WHITE : H.D., ELIZABETH BISHOP, SYLVIA PLATH, AND WHITENESS. I believe it will be available in November. In light of the recent discussion about Plath's use of the term "nigger-eyed," it may be of interest to some. It is an academic book, so it's quite pricey at $50.00.

    Below is the publisher's book description:

    Just as the cultural background of readers shapes how they respond to texts, the context in which writers live shapes what they write. When a context is dominant within a culture, the effects of that context upon an author may be taken for granted and thus overlooked. Race is a powerful factor in shaping literary works. Literature by black writers, for example, often reflects the experiences of African Americans. At the same time, though perhaps less obviously, literature by white writers may similarly reflect the experience of being white. This book argues that H.D., Elizabeth Bishop, and Sylvia Plath wrote from an unproclaimed dominant white perspective that becomes evident in their poetry.

    Loosely delineated, "writing white" constitutes writing authored from an acknowledged or unacknowledged white perspective; writing that implies or explicitly delivers the concept of "whiteness" to a text; writing that remains unconcerned with white racial politics internal and external to the text; and writing that uses the word "white" to maintain ideological systems of mastery and dichotomy. This book examines numerous poems in terms of whiteness. Each chapter places one poet in the larger context of historical and cultural racial events prevalent during the time of her writing and explores the particular poems created and published during that period.

    Pamela
     New Haven, USA
    Sunday, October 31, 1999



    Dear Melissa, thank you so much for that note about Ariel as a birthday poem. I had never thought of it like that but it makes perfect sense. It is one of those poems that fascinates me without me really understanding it completely, there's just something that is so powerful it comes through even if you are not sure what she is talking about and take it for a horseride and a beginning. I think it is one of those poems that can be read and understood on so many different levels.

    But I had always wondered about that cry of a child melting in the wall. I had also imagined that there was some sexual imagery in there, with the brown furrow splitting, the thighs and hair, the foam and glitter. With the birth story at least that seems not too far-fetched then.

    By the way, I read the article mentioned here on Ted Hughes and black magic, I found the idea quite disturbing but a bit too surreal to be taken seriously. What did you think of that?

    Anja Beckmann
     Leipzig, Germany
    Friday, October 29, 1999



    I am reading "the Bell Jar" now, and I have been a fan since I read her poem (or part of it), "Lesbos", in a play I was in called "Why We Have A Body". I love her writing, i find it complex and disturbing and...clarity. Clarity above all.

    Noelle
     Napa, USA



    Autumn 1962: the Ariel poems are written, the title poem dated to Plath's thirtieth birthday, October 27, thirty-seven years ago today."Ariel," it seems to me, is the ur-Birthday Letter -- the poem reads like a time-lapsed photograph of emergence, with its visual hyper-reality, its speed. Its action mimics that of the birth canal, the act of labor a splitting furrow, blood clots like "nigger-eye berries," language that gives way to "Something else" which "Hauls me through air." When "The child's cry/Melts in the wall" we are left with a new creation, paradoxically "suicidal," an entity that finds life -- or life purified in language -- in immolation. As Robert Lowell stated in his preface to Ariel, Plath "becomes herself" in these poems, "newly, wildly and subtly created -- hardly a person at all." Judith Kroll, in "Chapters in a Mythology," asserts that Plath uses the name "Ariel" as "actually a quite specific biblical reference, alluding to fiery sacrifice, purif! ication, and transcendence," citing Isaiah 29:1 ("Ariel, the city where David dwelt!"). In this sense, all the poems of Ariel can be seen as birthday poems, in that the speaker continually enacts the same ritual: death of the self resulting in (literal) transfiguration.

    Melissa Dobson
     Newport, RI, USA
    Thursday, October 28, 1999



    Am new to Plath, and have just read The Bell Jar. Did anyone else find it the most intense, absorbing, addictive piece of fiction(?) they had ever read? I have just got a book of her poems, and am hoping these will be as good. Any thoughts on the Bell Jar, please mail me

    Sarah
     Manchester, UK
    Thursday, October 28, 1999



    Does anyone know where I can get hold of a copy of the Journals of Sylvia Plath it's out of print in England - is it available in America? If not I'll just have to start rooting through second hand book-shops! email me if you know where I can get my hands on one. cheers

    Emma Brooks
     Manchester, England
    Thursday, October 28, 1999



    Emma - have you tried Amazon.com in the US or Amazon.co.uk in the UK ? - your email address didn't come through properly - Elaine Connell



    The swans are gone.Still the river
    Remembers how white they were.
    It strives after them with its lights.
    It finds their shapes in a cloud.
    What is that bird that cries
    With such sorrow in its voice?
    I am young as ever,it says. Sylvia Plath,March 1962

    Not a swan but a phoenix, forever young. Happy Birthday.10/27/99.

    Anonymous
     USA
    Wednesday, October 27, 1999



    I don't know too much about the sow poem, but I too have often wondered about it's allusions and so forth. I think I read somewhere that she was "inspired" to write it by a suggestion from Ted in regard to her experimenting with more immediate "hands on" subject matter. I'm sorry I can't remember in what source I read that.

    On another note, today (the 27th) is the anniversary of Syliva's birth. Happy Birthday SP!

    Pamela
     New Haven, USA
    Wednesday, October 27, 1999



    We are currently studying Sylvia Plath for our degree, and we need to discuss her influence and impact on twentieth century poetry. If anyone can help or give us any information we would be extremely grateful!!!

    Verity Westcott
     Derby, England
    Wednesday, October 27, 1999



    I find Sylvia Plath's poetry to be confusing, which makes her work more interesting to read.

    Suzanne
     Ottoville, USA
    Wednesday, October 27, 1999



    I'm teaching "Mirror." Does anyone know if "Now I am a lake is a allusion to King Arthur's Lady of the Lake? Thanks. A student asked.

    dorie larue
     shreveport, LA, USA
    Wednesday, October 27, 1999



    Could you tell me where I could find information on Plath's "Sow." Several friends and I are debating what exactly it means and what inspired Plath to write it. Thanks

    William Adams
     Fayetteville, GA, USA
    Wednesday, October 27, 1999



    Am I the only person to find PLath's poetry both accutely disturbing and intensely interesting?

    Gillian
     Wasington, Tyne and Wear, Great Britain
    Wednesday, October 27, 1999



    I have just finished reading Linda Wagner-Martin's new book on Sylvia Plath. As Peter Steinberg said back in June, it is a straight-ahead reading of her works in relation to her life, free of modern theories that I suspect aren't always applicable to Plath (although hey, you're welcome to them!)

    Anyway, I was wondering what the Forum thought of this passage:

    The difference between Plath's anger toward Hughes during the fall of 1962...and what seems to be her lamenting nostalgia for their marriage here in 1963 is frightening. It is as if she has forgotten her very real physical fear of him, fear that had, whether or not consciously, kept her from ever rousing him to complete anger. Even as she told her mother in September that she was afraid of him, she brainwashed herself past those fears.

    Now, what is going on here? Wagner-Martin seems to be saying that Plath wanted Hughes back so much she was able (or willing) to forget his past aggression.

    But I see other things here as well. Plath's ECT treatment back in 1953 - how did this affect the way her mind worked? Did it set up a pattern wherein a terrible thing would happen, and then she would forget how scary it was and then long to return to it? And why did she choose someone as violent as Hughes in the first place? From all accounts their courtship was stormy, even in the small diary at the Lilly, it comes across that way. Did the ECT treatment make her want other intense experiences, so she could test herself and then, having survived them, prove to herself how strong she was? Was this why the separation from Hughes was more intolerable than his treatment of her?

    Lena Friesen
     Toronto, Canada
    Saturday, October 23, 1999



    I agree with Kim that Hughes is getting the 'Plath treatment' after his death. Would anyone be willing to send me a copy of the Sunday Times article 'Bard of Prey' as well? Of course I will pay for postage, copying, etc. if you will be so kind.

    As for why he had chosen to be cremated, maybe Ted Hughes was still a Buddhist. As far as his so-called satanism, the article "How black magic killed Sylvia Plath", speaks to that. Elaine has highlighted it for us; see her posting of September 15, 1999. A. Alvarez is a really fine writer but he could stand to put his imagination on a leash sometimes when he gets going on Plath and Hughes. In the above article, A. implies that one of T.H.'s 'satanic acts' was hypnotizing Sylvia during labor. It's a fun piece, so do check it out!

    Finally, to Kim Orlijan, you can make this class something really special. What an opportunity. My advice is to consider including the Butscher biography, and go heavy on the Collected Poems, especially beginning on p. 190 with "Crossing the Water." By page 192 she seems to have found out about Ted and Assia. "Waking in Winter" and "Poem for a Birthday" as well as some of the early stuff are real Plath. And you could read Dylan Thomas' "Poem On His Birthday" along with Sylvia's version, and Wallace Stevens' "The Planet on the Table" with her "Ariel" etc. I myself would LOVE to learn about the various poems she wrote "on the back of". If anyone out there would even point me toward some of them....Plus there is her husband's work. Snippets I have read from his book Gaudette all seem to be about her and how he learned compassion for her (too late); and some are about her and their children, e.g. "Calves harshly parted from their mamas." Hope this helps.

    Elizabeth
     San Francisco, USA
    Saturday, October 23, 1999



    I am currently working on a research paper for my college level literature class. In the paper I am discussing how good a poet Sylvia Plath really was. I intend to discuss both viewpoints. Was she truely an amazing poet on the same level as other greats such as Shakespear, or was she just made so well known by her contoversial life and suicide? I personally feel she was truely exceptional, however there are critics out there who beg to differ. If anyone out there can point to a good website or other source please email me. This paper is due mid-November, so any information regarding this topic after November will be useless. I really appreciate any help anyone is willing to lend.

    Ceteka
     Knoxville, USA
    October 22, 1999



    Tanya-To me SP was the doorway into poetry.As a college student in the early eighties I had almost no experience of serious poetry,and I believed it to be a boring old art form inflicted upon me by boring old people,irrelevant to my life and experience ("Batter my heart,o three-personed God",etc).Good rock lyrics were obviously superior to any poetry,in my estimation.Sylvia changed all that.One day during second-year English I began reading ahead in the text,and discovered Sylvia's "Insomniac" ("people riding to work in rows,as if recently brain-washed").Stunning! Who was this woman? I had to read more.The college library had copies of "Colossus" and "Ariel",and the local used book store had a copy of Butscher's "Method and Madness".Eventually I read "Bell Jar" and discovered some musical settings of the poems.Naturally,as a psychology major and artist,I was intrigued by the suicide. It was only much later that I discovered that SP was popularly regarded as a feminist icon and poster child for "disturbed creativity".I admit that her life story does help to facillitate understanding and interpretation of her work,but I do think that emphasis on the "mad girl's" biography overshadows her brilliance. I've read better poets, but I always come back to Sylvia.No other poet's work has the compelling bleakness of her mechanical/existential vision. Certain of her poems give me a bizarre sense of communicating with the dead, a feeling similar to that evoked in me by the best of H.R.Giger's art. Other of her poems are warm and touching,like those she wrote to her children.To my mind the test of any artwork is in it's ability to express complex emotion in an original way,and by this standard much of Sylvia's poetry succeeds admirably.

    Kevin
     New Brunswick NJ, USA
    Tuesday, October 19, 1999



    Hi, all: This is my first "trip" to this site. What has prompted my visit is that I have just learned that I will be teaching a course next quarter on Plath here at UC Riverside and thought I'd see what's out there for me (and my students)to find on the web. Actually, I hope to incorporate some sort of posting requirement for the students, perhaps in this forum. Further, this will be the first time I will teach a literature class (I have, so far, taught only composition courses) and am hoping for some brilliant ideas and input from, well, anyone, concerning what I should include on my syllabus. Anyone??

    Thanks for any and all advice and I look forward to checking out this site again soon. Cheers,

    Kim Orlijan
     Riverside, CA, USA
    Tuesday, October 19, 1999



    My apologies to everyone for using the forum for a personal request, but I am unable to access individual email addresses due to some flaw in my computer system.

    Tanya, thank you for your reply. I have been unable to access the article because it seems that the Times does not put their magazine on line. Would it be at all possible for you (or someone else reading this who has the article) to send me a copy of the article at your convenience? I would be happy to pay for postage, copying etc. Please let me know via email (kim@diapo.ci.detroit.mi.us).

    For anyone else who wants to know where to find the Times article on Hughes' changing of his will, it is in the Sunday, October 10th edition.

    Many thanks for your patience!

    Kim
     Detroit, USA
    Tuesday, October 19, 1999



    I am doing an essay on THE BELL JAR by Sylia Plath and could rally do with some help so if anyone has any info which they think could be useful please E-mail me, THANKS

    Sheryl
     Scotland
    Tuesday, October 19, 1999



    Kim - the article was in the magazine section of the Sunday 3 October edition of The Sunday Times. It was a lengthy four pager called 'Bard of Prey' by John Cornwell.

    Its main focus was on Hughes' belief that his vast critical work 'Shakespeare and the Complete Goddess of Being' caused his cancer. Too much prose was bad for his health, that sort of thing.

    But interesting stuff as well on his occult beliefs and the effect of this on Plath and others (one unnamed source admitted to playing sacred music as he drove through Devon to ward off Hughes' malign influence!).

    While I'm here - an open question. I'm soon off to visit Mytholmroyd and Heptonstall for the first time as a birthday treat (Oct 27th!), but I'm wrestling with my motives. Being a peanut-cruncher to use P's phrase.

    But then I tell myself that she was one too - renting Yeats' house, urging Ted to climb the railings and carve his initials next to Yeats' on that tree in Ireland. She turned serially to Virginia Woolf's diaries as I do to her's...

    I'm sure some of you must have made the trip already and it would be interesting to hear what you felt when you got there. Maybe we could even start something off on what Plath and Hughes mean to us all imaginatively.

    Yes, it starts with the poetry. For me, growing up ten miles from Court Green, it was Hughes way before Plath. His Stealing Trout on a May Morning - 'because this is no wilderness you can just rip into/Every leaf is plump and well married/Every grain of soil of known lineage, well-connected'- was a part of home I could keep at college.

    But then knowledge of their lives comes in . And I'm not going to pretend that that isn't part of what makes me return to them more than Larkin, or Eliot, or Roethke. But it's not the suicide - the cliched thing that everyone assumes I find thrilling, when I say I like Plath's work. The thing that makes me embarrassed to admit I like either of their stuff.

    So what I'm asking everyone is - what are they to you, Plath and Hughes?

    Tanya
     Bristol, England
    October 18, 1999



    Tanya - I checked the London Times for the article on Hughes, but the only article I found was one regarding the changing of Hughes' will to include Olwyn, Nicholas and Frieda. Can you tell me the date of the article and the headline? Has anyone else read the article regarding the will? It seems that reports are getting worse and worse for Mr. Hughes - now there are printed intimations of satanism. Looks as if Hughes is getting the 'Plath treatment' after his own demise, and there will be those who feel it is justified and those who feel that it's all so sad and pathetic. How wonderful NOT to be famous!

    Kim
     Detroit, USA
    Friday, October 15, 1999



    For anyone interested there is an article in the CNN Books section online regarding the highly anticipated publication of the unedited version of Plath's journals. There isn't any real new information that hasn't already been released but for those of you who haven't heard about the details, the first few paragraphs give some good info (the remainder of which gives a pitiful brief bio). Anyway here's the page:

    Deja
     USA
    Friday, October 15, 1999



    Hi All, this is short notice I know but seeing a fellow Bristolian on the forum I wanted to make sure you are aware of the Birthday Letters Dayschool which is being held on 16th October as part of the Bristol poetry festival. For further info please ring 0117 9288924 and quote course number B99D099SRA.

    Annie
     Bristol, UK
    Thursday, October 14, 1999



    How did Sylvia Plath try to die the first time? I know the second time she took sleeping pills and hide in a place uneder her house and then she put her head in a gas oven 10 years later and finally killed herself. Thanks.

    Christy
     Knoxville, USA
    Thursday, October 14, 1999



    After posting here, I managed to get hold of a hard copy of the Sunday Times article on Hughes after all.

    Was staggered by the claim that Hughes had Plath's body embalmed before its burial up on Heptonstall. Had anyone else heard this before? A particularly strange act when one thinks that he had his own body cremated. Given his own strong belief in the occult, was this a strange attempt to pervert the natural course of decay and rebirth? To stop her meeting him on the 'other side'?

    Tanya
     Bristol, England
    Thursday, October 14, 1999



    A friend just ambled over to my house with a clipping from the San Francisco Chronicle saying that Plath's complete journals will be published in Britain in April,and that they're still looking for an Americal publisher. "The decision has been made to publish them in their entirety,unedited, so the world can judge for themselves," according to Faber and Faber editor Joanna Mackle (according to the article). I logged onto the forum to get further information, but . . . nada. Anyone have any more particulars? I enjoy the forum very much, by the way. The story between Ted and Sylvia has never been clear to us outside that very intimate circle of man and wife, of lovers, and that has, I think, distorted our perception of their work and perhaps softened its impact. With everything finally available-- this gift of the Hughes' family survivors--perhaps we can all achieve something Ted Hughes didn't until the end--closure. Of course, my copy of The Birthday Letters is still missing those--what is it--13? poems of the 1st English edition. Does anyone know how I can get copies of those? Or why they were edited out? Thanks

    Charlene
     Sacramento, CA, USA
    Thursday, October 14, 1999



    I am a final year student at De Montfort University, Leicester. I am writing a Dissertation on Sylvia Plath, yet am using the angle of her heitage as a possible cause for her depression and inferiority complex.Being from a fmily of immigrants in 1940/50's America, must have had an influence on a young girl of the time, and I want to know how this affected Ms Plath and her attitude to work.

    Please, if you know of any relevant sites or the email address of people with the same interest, please pass it on to myself. Regards and thanks

    Selena Laye
     Leicester, England
    Wednesday, October 13, 1999



    Did anyone here read the article on Ted Hughes in the Sunday Times magazine two weeks ago? I somehow missed it and can't find a link to it on their site. What did I miss? Although I never normally contribute here, I log on a lot and find you guys the most reliable guide to anything 'out there' on Plath and Hughes...

    Tanya
     Bristol, England
    Tuesday, October 12, 1999



    This should be quite an evening. If anyone here would like to meet there, please e-mail me privately.

    A Tribute to Ted Hughes

    Date: Monday, October 11
    Time: 8 p.m.
    Place: the 92nd Street Y--Unterberg Poetry Center, 1395 Lexington Avenue (at 92nd Street), New York City

    Friends and fellow poets Carolyn Forche, W.S. Merwin, Paul Muldoon, Grache Schulman and Derek Walcott read from the late English Poet Laureate's work and offer their reflections. Actress Irene Worth reads excerpts from Hughes' dramatic translations. Tickets: $15 Reserve by calling 212-996-1100

    Notes on the Center:
    Since 1939, the Unterberg Poetry Center has been a platform for the world's greatest poets. The list of luminaries that have graced its stage include: W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Robert Lowell, Marianne Moore, Pablo Neruda, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas, Chinua Achebe, Isabel Allende, Saul Bellow, Anthony Burgess, Umberto Eco, Ralph Ellison, Nadine Gordimer, Harold Pinter, Adrienne Rich, John Updike, and Tennessee Williams.

    Each year the Poetry Center sponsors programs such as the Poetry Center Writing Program, Biographers and Brunch, the "Discovery"/The Nation poetry contest, and the Poetry Center Schools Project.
    The Poetry Center recently celebrated its 60th birthday with an inimitable cast of speakers: Edward Albee, Rita Dove, Stanley Kunitz, Tony Kushner, Grace Paley, and Reynolds Price. Where else but NYC would you find such a line-up on a single night, and where else but at the Poetry Center? As Kunitz said that night, he had never heard another poet read in public until he came to the Center, in his opinion, the forum that created U.S. poetry.

    Michael McGraw
     New York City, USA
    Thursday, October 7, 1999



    Melissa, my apologies for the mis-attribution re: Apollonianism of Plath and Hughes. I admit to being over-eager. Hope you write here again, soon, and Sylvia Mikkelson too. I had remembered postings from you both from months back and that is one reason I decided to join in this forum.

    About the Kroll material that Kim mentions: who will summarize it? Plath overall does not seem Dionysian, as I understand the term. I think of The Bacchae of Euripides. As a whole, her passion when released seems implosive to me. With a few exceptions like "Daddy," "Lady Lazarus", & maybe "Medusa", even the most "outrageous" ideas reach us from a great emotional distance. This I find very attractive. It is cool, more blue than red, to borrow Hughes' image. She reminds me of the Belgian surrealist artist Rene Magritte, a thinker who worked in paint (in Plath's case she painted with words) And yet below the "substanceless blue pour" she is a fireball at the verge of knocking through some door. But ultimately at the verge. Delicately hovering there--for what or whom was she waiting?

    Elizabeth
     San Francisco, USA
    Wednesday, October 6, 1999



    Elizabeth attributed to me a view of Plath/Hughes Apollonianism that was actually put forward by Sylvia Mikkelson in a 6 August 1998 posting on this forum. Readers interested in discussing this topic should perhaps start there.

    Melissa Dobson
     Newport, RI, USA
    Wednesday, October 6, 1999



    There is an interesting article in today's London Times (October 5, 1999), about Ted Hughes' last work 'Alcestis.' The 8 page article discusses the parallels between Euripides play and Hughes' own life with Sylvia. According to journalist Peter Stothard, "the Alcestis has its origins in the most fundamental totems of Greek mythology. Marriage and death were its themes." Perhaps 'Birthday Letters' was not Hughes' final word on his relationship with Sylvia.

    Kim
     Detroit, USA
    Tuesday, October 5, 1999



    Disucssion about Plath's alignment with either an Apollonian or Dionysian spirit makes me think about Nietzsche's discussion of these two creative forces in the Birth of Tragedy. In this early early work, Nietzsche maintains that these two belong together and should not be thought of as dichotomous. His later writings which stress Dionysian abandonment over Apollonian structure make it difficult (I think) to remember that he once described these two spirits as belonging together. Perhaps Plath's poetry can be thought of as an instance where these two spirits come together once again. Each poem would produce a particular fusing of these two. However, her writing taken as a totality does seem to produce a sense of wholeness and unity that can be understood as beyond the post-modern tendency to fragment truth or multiply it beyond comprehension.

    Ellen Miller
     Washington Township, NJ, USA
    Tuesday, October 5, 1999



    Jean - for an in depth analysis of 'Sheep in Fog,' you may wish to read Ted Hughes' chapter on the poem in his collected essays 'Winter Pollen.' Also, Judith Kroll's book 'Chapters in a Mythology' touches on the poem, but more importantly, explains why Plath's poetry should be considered 'mythic' rather than confessional. Elizabeth writes about Melissa's assertion that Plath and Hughes were Appolonian poets, and I think Kroll - quite rightly in my (inexpert) opinion - provides a lot of evidence for the opposite viewpoint - that Plath (and Hughes) were Dionysian poets. Any one else care to comment on this?

    Kim
     Detroit, USA
    Monday, October 4, 1999



    I am looking for any information, thoughts, ideas, critiques re: SHEEP IN FOG. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

    Jean
     Brooklyn, USA
    Saturday, October 2, 1999



    At http://dte6.educ.ualberta.ca/nethowto_support/examples/j_welz/, there is a beautiful picture of Sylvia Plath at Smith College, 1955.

    To Peter, yes, I love "Three Women," and look forward to discussing it. Unfortunately, my Collected Poems actually belongs to the S.F. Public Library. It's back with them right now. I assume this is not someone's idea of a joke--they have had it listed as "lesbian poetry." In their system under Plath they also list a sheet music composition; I believe its called "Sylvia Plath." I can get the information if anyone would like it, or make copies, providing it's still available.

    Until I get The C.P. I can't say much about the above poem. Two "Ariel" poems I'm thinking of right now are "Sheep in Fog" and "Edge." A while back Melissa Dobson wrote that Plath and Hughes were both Apollonians. Im sure her explanation would be fascinating. For me, the restraint of S.P.'s philosophy is quite visible in "Sheep in Fog":



    That dark heaven sounds like a rite of passage. She had let go and entered the unknown before (though unwillingly), came out on the other side and achieved "reconstruction," ("The Stones"). But without Hughes, or maybe another Hughesian figure like A. Alvarez, did she lose the ability to trust? Of course, how many people, even geniuses, ever leap clear of what haunts them? When Sylvia finally got to the "Edge" she couldn't go forward, that is, exist on blind faith. Such a disturbing disturbing aspect of this poem is that the children in it have also died.

    Elizabeth
     San Francisco, USA
    Saturday, October 2, 1999



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    This forum is administered by Elaine Connell, author of Sylvia Plath: Killing The Angel In The House - second edition with new preface just out, December 1998. Elaine lives in Hebden Bridge, near where Sylvia Plath is buried and where Ted Hughes was born. Web Design by Pennine Pens. This forum is moderated - contributions which are inappropriate, anonymous or likely to offend may be edited or omitted.