Contributions: April 2001
Terri from Alabama, "A Poem for Three Voices" is the *sub*-title for her three-character BBC radio play, I think the title is "Three Women", or some such. It's in the Collected Poems; can't miss it, it's the only one that looks like a play.
--Fabienne of Courtry, I just today got a copy of the unabridged journals (trade credit at my local bookstore, at long last)...the main difference is that it's not cut to fit any agenda, which is SOP with Plath--most obvious example being the cover to one of the paperbacks--was it Letters Home? or the Butscher biography?--that retouched her photo, to make her look devilish.
But, just at a cursory glance; the unabridged journals are, what, three times as long, five, six?--, and make her seem more artless, unaffected, and honest, and human, and alive; the abridged journals are withered shadows beside them, drab, spiritless. Reading them, I feel hopelessly split between two tines--glad that this, at least, escaped the flames; and a great void about what is forever lost--Falcon Yard, the last journals, the stray poems in manuscript that have yet to be printed, and may never be. (notes in the TLS a couple of years back about some letters & poems down at UCLA, notes in the Markey book about unpublished Ariel poems...) She had a flaming imagination; and threw herself in the fire...and I feel, reading this journal, how distorted, what a lie it was, for her after-life to be only only as some great black-winged bat, a totem of suicide; but--her fault, in a way; not, in a way; no-one's, in a way...
But, reading these you do see why Hughes wrote soon after, "No one loved life more than she." They are terribly quick; and words are, after all, only echoes of a life.
Tell me about the Doizelet book--I'm an American barbarian, who cannot read French...Kenneth Jones
Berkeley, USA
Saturday, April 28, 2001
I refer to Jim Long's query about the UK edition of The Journals. The pages referred to in recent postings are identically placed over here.Nigel Chadwick
Manchester, UK
Friday, April 27, 2001
To all avowed Sylvia Plath supporters and admirers:
I am with the Sylvia Plath day organizing committee. Let me explain: over 1,000 people signed a petition just recently in the city of Northampton, Ma to have a Sylvia Plath Day. The Mayor, consumed by the irresistible force of Plath petition signers/supporters then declared October 27, 2001 Sylvia Plath Day. As you know, Sylvia Plath attended Smith College in Northampton. We are planning a big celebration of the life and legacy of Sylvia Plath on October 27 of this year. We can use your help!
Please send inquiries to:
The Sylvia Plath Day Organizing Committee
PO Box 281
Northampton, Ma 01061
I'll be happy to talk with you further about participation: (413) 536-6939Michael
Northampton, Ma, USA
Friday, April 27, 2001
"I am no more your mother than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect her own slow effacement at the wind's hand."This is, in my opinion, one of the most hauntingly beautiful images in all of Plath's poems. And I think you're on the right track in seeing it as an expression of a sense of detachment from the child, or, more accurately, the need to detach emotionally, to conjure up a detached perspective, to defend against too strong an attachment, in view of the process of effacement that is taking place as a sort of inevitable natural force. The cloud scatters itself as rain, forming a pond or puddle, thus undergoing a dis-integrating process that is reflected in the eyes/I of the child.
To paraphrase a comment of T.S. Eliot's (in "Tradition and the Individual Talent"): for the person that suppresses his emotions, it's not because they are unemotional, but because they have strong emotions to suppress. In other words, I think that this image represents a complex interplay of attachment and detachment.
I didn't intend to make it sound so convoluted, but it's a complex image. I must admit that I have carried these lines in my memory for years, and this is the first time I've really analyzed closely the underlying concepts. I prefer to let the image, as presented, carry the meaning through the medium of the poem. For me it loses some of its magic to interpose all these concepts between the words. After all, when we listen to music we don't ask ourselves "What does it mean?" We let ourselves be carried on the waves of it's sounds and the feeling that it engenders in us; we dance to it, we don't try to dissect it--we surrender to it's living power, as we must to the wind, though it threaten to efface us in the act of surrender.
Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Wednesday, April 25, 2001
I am looking for the origin of the quote, "It is a terrible thing to be so open, it is as if my heart put on a face and walked into the world". It is listed as being from, "A Poem for Three Voices", but I can find no references to it. Thanks for the help,Terri
Alabama, USA
Wednesday, April 25, 2001
I came across your site recently. I wondered if you or your visitors would like to come and see Letters Home - A life of Sylvia Plath at the Millfield Theatre on Wednesday 2nd May 7.30pm. I know its very late notice but I only recently discovered you site whilst searching for writers' circles on the net. You can get more details at www.millfieldtheatre.co.uk The show is on tour so you may also be able to catch it elsewhere in the country.Jon Lockwood
Box Office Manager
Edmonton, UK
Tuesday, April 24, 2001
I am new to the forum, but now that I have found it, I won't stop connecting to it. Thank you so much, it is very interesting. I have discovered Sylvia Plath ten months ago thanks to a small article in a french magazine. Now I am reading anything I can find on Sylvia Plath :her own works of course, biographies and so on...
Last night, Ihave just finished "Letters Home". The next one will be "The Bell Jar".I have already read the abridged version of the JOURNALS. I would like to knoww the differences with the unabridged version.I would like also some information about Sylvia's hatred for her mother, because I read about it several times without any more explanations.
My last request is about a french book called :"La Terre Des Morts est Lointaine" by Sylvie Doizelet. I found this book very interesting and I would like to know if anyone in the forum has read it. If so, what do you think about it ?Fabienne
Courtry, France
Tuesday, April 24, 2001
I am looking for a piece written by Sylvia Plath titled, "Initiation". I believe it is a short story, not a poem. I am frantic with looking for it! I must have it for a project upon which I am currently working. Can anyone help me? Thanks to one and all for ANY help...Tanasi
Boca Raton, USA
Tuesday, April 24, 2001
Doing some work on 'Morning Song' and I'm having trouble understanding the degree of her attachment/detachment from her child and also the significance of the cloud. Love to hear anything anyone has to say in relation to this poem.Rick
Melbourne, Australia
Tuesday, April 24, 2001
Plath and paintings - in 1958 Plath wrote a number of poems based on paintings, you can find some of the poems and paintings here
Seeing them together really changes your reading of the poem. However, I don't know which painting The Ghost's Leavetaking is based on, there seems to be no such painting by Klee, I tried to look for possible German names of the painting but found nothing (except a good online gallery of modern European art).Anja Beckmann
Leipzig, Germany
Sunday, April 22, 2001
First to Jim Long. Thanks for putting me right on the God quote but I only have the abridged version. Do you have the date that the entry was for (it may not be in but I hope)
Second. I don't know which Klee paintings but you could try and guess using www.artchive.com which has many of his pictures. I too would be interested to know,Martin McGann
Whitley Bay, UK
Monday, April 2, 2001
"The wide grey sea of his life" Please tell me where I can read this poem or email me it or send a link to it if it is on the web.Clarissa Vincent
Bristol, UK
Sunday, April 22, 2001
My goodness, it looks like term paper central on this forum all of a sudden...Amy Rea
Eden Prairie, USA
Sunday, April 22, 2001
Talking of paintings that inspired Sylvia Plath, which Klee painting or drawing inspired "The Ghost's Leavetaking"? Hughes's endnote in CP (p. 287) merely says, of this poem and "Battle Scene", "on paintings by Klee".Anna Ravano
Milan, Italy
Friday, April 20, 2001
Hello everyone. I am working on a presentation for a class on Silvia Plath. I have to teach about the poem Spinster.. but the problem is I don't understand it all that much myself. I could really use some thoughts or ideas, on how to explain this poem to a large group of people. If anyone has read this poem and has any ideas for me I would be more than greatful. You can Email me at Suprwoman6@aol.com. Thank you!Kasey Kletschke
Sioux City, Iowa, USA
Friday, April 20, 2001
I'm doing an AP English explication of "spinster" and although the poem doesn't seem that difficult to explicate it's giving me kittens. I've researched her life and understand her attitudes at least somewhat, but am having problems with some ofthe more technical parts of the explication- what are the 'queenly wits' she speaks of? Three weeks to the test and counting... I'd appreciate any helpErica
Beavercreek, USA
Friday, April 20, 2001
Does anyone have a clear explanation of what Plath's "Morning Song" means? If so, please get back to me! Thanks.Lindsay
Millsboro, USA
Friday, April 20, 2001
On the subject of influences, if a visual artist constitutes an influence just because Plath wrote a poem based on a painting, then you have to include Klee (for the poem on the 'Seafarer" painting) and certainly de Chirico, whose "Disquieting Muses" seems to have made a strong impression on her, echoing, as it seems to, the image of her own haunting female familiars.
My own feeling is that Van Gogh's manic late paintings are closer to the style and feel of Plath's poetry. As for literary influences, you have to include Lowell, whose "Life Studies" she mentions a number of times, and Theodore Roethke, whose tone and diction she picks up in a number of the poems in "Colossus" and whose relationship to his father she recognized as similar to her own. And of course Anne Sexton, who she knew and whose diaristic style opened up possibilities for her own work. The striking echoes of Sexton's poem "My Friend" in Plath's "Daddy" have been commented on in the Forum previously. It would also be interesting to look closely at the influence of Adrienne Rich's early work, since Plath seemed almost obsessed with AR as a rival poet who published a great deal of work while Plath was still struggling.Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Wednesday, April 18, 2001
To Anja and Elaine, I agree--I too like the idea of book reviews, and I agree with your assessments of the Myers' book. I didn't think it was the best-written book I've ever read, but when keeping in mind that the person writing it was not necessarily going to be very objective, it was very interesting.
Anja, I've just begun reading the Tracy Brain book. I'm hoping she'll stick to her promises of looking at the poetry as poetry, rather than biographical material; those kinds of studies of Plath's poetry are few and far between. She makes some persuasive arguments towards that line in the beginning. But she also admits that having studied the Plath archives, it is difficult to remove biographical elements from consideration.
She notes a couple of very touching personal details from the archives (one being a note from Plath's London Bell Jar editor, dated 2/12/63, asking why she missed lunch the day before, and the other being the annotations Aurelia Plath made on Sylvia's letters, including one Aurelia dated 2/14/63), and what remains to be seen (since I'm not that far into the book yet) is whether or not she holds true to her critical strategy or falls back into biographical guesswork.Amy Rea
Eden Prairie, USA
Wednesday, April 18, 2001
Hello. I am a freshman at a major university. I have a 15 page paper due on Sylvia Plath and how she has been described by critics. Some say that she has been a backlash to the sexist 1950's view of women being nothing but home and baby makers, and by other critics as a cry for help from the psyche of a disturbed, mentally ill young woman. I feel that a little bit of both arguments are true but I was wondering what you thought. I really enjoyed your website and it was full of useful information that really helped me along in my studies. Hope to hear from you soon.Dan
USA
Wednesday, April 18, 2001
I really like the idea of a review section, Elaine, so often it is hard to decide whether a book is worth having or not. I have to add that I fully agree with William Bedford's review and his statement that "Myers comes across as a man who befriended a great poet by accident but hasn't really the imagination to know what a poet is."
Myers reads Birthday Letters as facts, not as poetry, and is happy to fill in some blanks (but can we trust his memory of the events?), his style is awkward and at times confusing, and his judgement of Plath is based on his reading of her journals and a strong dislike for her being so "American".
Has anybody read the new book by Tracy Brain? I am still waiting for my copy.Anja Beckmann
Leipzig, Germany
Tuesday, April 17, 2001
Corrie,
Influences as indicated from the newest release of her journals indicate the following as significant, in various periods of her life: Rousseau, Gauguin, DH Lawrence,Woolf **, Yeats, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Iris Murdoch, Eudora Welty & (of course) Ted Hughes.
Hope this helps.Susanne
USA
Tuesday, April 17, 2001
I am trying to find Sylvia Plath's thesis. Would anybody know what website/library/etc might have a copy, or even just some extracts? Thanks.Frances
Melbourne, Australia
Tuesday, April 17, 2001
I would like to commend all of the scholars and enthusiasts who put effort into constructing this site. I have been an admirer of Sylvia Plath since I was a young girl. As a poet, I can only hope to achieve half of the mastery of art and emotion that Sylvia did. I am currently writing a research paper for one of my professors about a woman's struggle to contain the sphere of artist and that of domesticity, and would appreciate any further sources you could direct me towards. Your book, Ms. Connell has of course been of extreme importance to my research, and I thank you!Lorien Cuneo
Houston, USA
Saturday, April 14, 2001
It has been an extremely long time (quite literally!) since I have been posting here, but I have often checked in and kept abreast of the discussions, and I see quite a lot of familiar names!
In today's weekend Australian newspaper (April 14-15, 2001) the magazine lift-out contains a cover story on Frieda Hughes and an interview with her. It's very interesting, to say the least, and when I have a little more time (I am currently swamped with university work) I shall type it up so that others can read it, too.
It would be far too long to post here, but perhaps Elaine might be able to find room for it somewhere on the site? If not, I am sure other alternatives can be arranged. (I think we should be able to do this. EC)
For those who were interested in reading "Wooroloo" the article mentions that it is to be re-released in the US when her second volume of poetry, "Stonepicker", is published there later this month. For those in Australia, "Stonepicker" is to be published by the Fremantle Arts' Centre Press this week, and they will also be issuing another run of "Wooroloo".Heidi Maier
Queensland, Australia
Saturday, April 14, 2001
In reply to Sean Cole's message, the lyrics are from a song by an American band called Death of Samantha, the song was on one of their albums. I think the song is just called Sylvia Plath.John Collins
Glasgow, UK
Saturday, April 14, 2001
There seems to be a sudden spurt of interest in the story "Initiation", Which was included in the well-known collection "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams", which should be available at any library or good bookstore (or from Amazon.com, or look for used copies at BookFinder.com.
It's a pleasant but slight story about a girl who gets involved in the fazing ritual required to get into a sorority, and then decides not to join; a parable about conformity/non-conformity.Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Saturday, April 14, 2001
Thanks, Elaine for doing such an interesting review of Lucas Myers's book. We are reminded that strongly biased opinions which are simply pro- or con-Plath or Hughes will not stand up to scrutiny. Both of their lives contained a frustratingly complex mix of brilliance and destructiveness. How ironic it is that so many of the most creative people we have known (or known about) have also been so destructive in their personal relations with others. You are probably right, Elaine, that judgment of the women artist tends to be more harsh than that of the men, but I for one still condemn most strongly Norman Mailer's inexcusable act of drunkenly stabbing his wife in a Greenwich Village street. And he got away with it because he was "a famous creative artist."
To some degree, unless we be mindless conformists, we are all conflicted persons, stumbling through our lives, meaning well but doing damage at times nevertheless. Being involved in the life and art of Sylvia Plath has been for me a valuable opportunity to stand before her mirror and see images of myself and others, otherwise unseen.
There is a well known epigram in medieval French accompanying the image of a human skull: "Mirrez vous y" - "Behold thyself therein," it says. Which says a lot about the vanity of human wishes and pretensions, and the brevity of our allotted mortality. To experience the imperfection of a Plath or a Hughes alongside their achievements is to improve one's own chances of self-knowledge and consequent achievement.
And hey! I like the new format of the Forum, and the new flock of contributors!Jack Folsom
Sharon, Vermont, USA
Thursday, April 12, 2001
Cristina Parker--read the Joyce Carol Oates article on "Sylvia Plath and the Death Throes of Romanticism"; that was on this site, but you can find it in a library, or in Paul Alexander's "Ariel Ascending."
And didn't a big book on "Gothic" just come out a couple of years ago, the author interviewed by Terry Gross on "Fresh Air"? Your distinction between male/female Gothic seems right on the money to me, I've always thought it oddly just that Plath and Poe are so often cheek to cheek in the poetry section at Borders. It's one of the reason Hughes to me seems more akin to Sexton than to Plath; the difference between stock and sui generis, or, if you will, talent and genius, like Berryman's distinction between Darley and Keats. (Personal Opinion...) Parallel source for you, Aldous Huxley's dissection of the distinction between Poe's reputation in France and here.
Nicholette in Pueblo, read "Crow", and Ernest Faas's "Ted Hughes; the Unassimilated Universe," or "Unaccommodated", or whatever it is...also Kroll's "Chapters in a Mythology," and Hughes' analysis of a Plath poem in "Winter Seeds." And Hughes passim.
And wear your asbestos gloves.
And, Coree from Brentwood, don't confuse the worker with his (or her) tools.
And, Victoria Antonini, if you find a copy of "Initiation," can you please pass it along?Kenneth Jones
Berkeley, USA
Thursday, April 12, 2001
I was just wondering..there was a message from a Mike Bazo who said,
"Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sylvia Plath is a lunatic,
And anyone who appreciates her poetry is too."
Why do you think this? E-mail me please.Cris
Canada
Thursday, April 12, 2001.
Did Sylvia Plath write anything titled "Initiation"? If yes, where is it published? Thanks.Ketti
Birmingham, AL, USA
Thursday, April 12, 2001
I am looking for a poem that goes by the title THE DUMB BELL. Does this mean anything to anyone?Claudia
Paris, France
Thursday, April 12, 2001
As a newcomer to the site, and relatively speaking, to Sylvia, I immediately felt the absence of dates actually attached to the 'sited' poems.
Also, as I read up on the production and reception of her work - I find myself asking what did she leave behind that she still wanted, that she would give up if she 'successfully' committed her own death? Many comments in the biogs./papers etc almost pointedly give Sylvia an ability to 'ghost write' others musings on her life, what is was/n't... often with a rather malicious expression on her face - why is this Jekyll and Hyde posthumous characterisation going on?Rory
Exeter, UK
Wednesday, April 11, 2001
As the editor for Dhalwa - the journal for the English Teachers Association of the Northern Territory I am being sent a review copy of "Poetics on Edge: The Poetry and Prose of Sylvia Plath A study of Sylvia Plath's poetic and poetological developments" by Silvianne Blosser. Has anyone heard anything about this book? I will post the review, for the journal, once I have received and read the book.Melanie Smith
Darwin, Australia
Tuesday, April 10, 2001
I am doing a research paper on Sylvia Plath and the influence black magic had on her suicide. If anyone knows where I can find any reputable information on this topic please contact me.Nicholette
Pueblo, CO, USA
Tuesday, April 10, 2001
I am a teacher pursuing National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification. As part of the assessment I need to be familiar with a short story entitled "Initiation" by Sylvia Plath. I have consulted a number of sources, human and non- and no one's heard of it. Can anyone help?Victoria Antonini
New York, USA
Tuesday,April 10, 2001
I posted the other day, but I had one more question. actually two! I can't find any references to her influences, by other writers. I made a Salinger link but I've got nada. Also, how do you think the time influenced her work? Ithink that the madness of the time caused her madness, as a coping method. I mean, it was pretty tumultuous, with the Cold-War and she seemed terrified of it. Any comments?Coree
Brentwood, USA
Tuesday, April 10, 2001
Martin, the statement "I talk to God, but the sky is empty" is not from a poem; it's on pg. 199 of the "Unabridged Journals" (Am. edn.):I need a father. I need a mother. I need some older, wiser being to cry to. I talk to God, but the sky is empty, and Orion walks by and doesn't speak.
Question: can someone in the UK tell me if the British edition of the "Journals" is paginated the same? If I give 199 as the page no. for this quote, is it the same page in the British ed.?
Also, there has been discussion and puzzlement in the past, both here (on the Forum) and in the world of Plath scholarship in general, about her identification with the Jews of the Nazi Holocaust and the reason for it. Well, there is a passage in the "Journals" (pg. 453, the entry for Dec. 31, 1958) where she states very explicitly, in a few sentences, the rationale for this identifica-tion:
My present theme seems to be the awareness of a complicated guilt system whereby Germans in a Jewish and Catholic community are made to feel, in a scapegoat fashion, the pain, psychically, the Jews are made to feel in Germany by Germans without religion. The child can't understand the larger framework. How does her father come into this? How is she guilty for her father's deportation to a detention camp? As this is how I think the story must end?
Why must the story end this way? with the psychic equivalent of sending the father to his death? Apparently she felt it as guilt for their German ancestry, even without any direct involvement (after all, her father was dead by 1940, before the world became aware of the death camps). Interesting, no?
Jim Long
Honolulu, HI, USA
Monday, April 9, 2001
Actually, I was interested to see some people responding the the pseud-goth side of Plath's poetry. I am in the midst of working on my thesis, a french feminist critique of female Gothic works, and I have chosen some of Anne Sexton's poetry as written in the Gothic strain. While the distinction between Gothic and Goth seems to elude me, I do see much evidence for Plath writing in the renewed Gothic tradition, especially in "Daddy." I also suggest that while Plath writes moreso in the male gothic strain, Sexton prefers the female gothic ideal. If anyone knows anything about Gothic literature or has something to add, I would love to hear another opinion.Christina Parker
Clinton, NY, USA
Monday, April 9, 2001
This is in response to Manuella's question about Plath's "Collected Poems". I tried to respond directly to her e-mail account, but my message was returned undelivered. Yes, the "Collected Poems" contains all of Sylvia's published poems, plus 50 poems that were not previously collected, but were published in magazines before 1956. The only drawback to the "Collected Poems" is that they are arranged strictly chronologically. That is, there is no indication which poems were originally in which collections. However, there is a listing in the appendices of the original ordering of the "Ariel" poems, so you can see which ones were in that collection.
There is also a listing at the end of the "Notes" section called "A Concordance with Published Volumes", which lists the previous collections along with the reference numbers of the poems in the present volume that were included in each of those collections.Jim Long
Honolulu, HI, USA
Sunday, April 8, 2001
We read Daddy in my English class and I hated it! But then we had to read a novel about and author, so I figured she'd be interesting and there would be plenty to write about. I wasn't optimistic on how happy and uplifting it would be. And then I read the Bell Jar, I'd actually read it if I didn't have to. Anyways, we were only supposed to read 1 book by the author, but I am intrigued, she is actually pretty cool. So I am reading her unabridged journals and getting tons of information. But I have one question, she seemed happy until she came home from her internship, what happened in between that and her time in the asylum. It must have been traumatic but what happened?Coree
Brentwood, USA
Sunday, April 8, 2001
I want to share with you all a wonderful book I have just finished reading, that gave me a whole new perspective on Sylvia's experience of electroshock, and the effects it may have had on her as far as personality changes and her relationship to the world and her sense of isolation and difference. It's called "A Match to the Heart" by a writer named Gretel Ehrlich. It's an account of her experience of being struck by lightning and surviving, but barely. She relates in great detail what happens in the body and the nervous system when it's jolted by massive electricity. And the bonus is that she's a marvelous writer:
Death is a dark thing, but it is also an illumination....Ritual death followed by resurrection stands for the death of ego. It is the hero's journey and the teacher's...as well as any shaman's or healer's. To become a shaman is to have experienced a strong calling, often marked by a bout with near-insanity or severe illness first.
Some Eskimos say that compared to shamans, ordinary people are like houses with extinguished lamps: they are dark inside and do not attract the attention of the spirits. Their word "qamaneq" means both "lightning" and "illumination"--because in their culture physical and metaphysical phenomena are considered to be the same.
And this, after all, is the basis of symbolism and metaphor in poetry the correspondence of the physical and the metaphysical. And the message of Enrlich's book is essentially that we are "grounded" by our relationship to nature and the natural world. She has a collection of essays called "Islands, the Universe, Home" that is also wonderful; each chapter is practically a prose poem. I encourage you ro read it. One essay is an account of the wildfires that devastated the western states about ten years ago:
As I walk, smoke is supplanted by brightening clouds; the moon-- and all desire for what is not-- rides out of the sky.
But, my point about "A Match to the Heart" is that it will enhance your understanding of what Sylvia went through, and the extent and nature of the real physical and psychic damage done by the trauma of major electric shock. It becomes easier to understand her near-obsession with images of electrocution, and you will get a whole new sense of the lines from "The Hanging Man":
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.Jim Long
Honolulu, HI, USA
Sunday, April 8, 2001
I would like to present my opinion of Sylvia Plath in the form of a poem.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sylvia Plath is a lunatic,
And anyone who appreciates her poetry is too.Mike Bazo
Sleepy Gulch,New Zealand
Friday, April 6, 2001
I found a rare beauty in Sylvia Plath's poetry, her intense connotations of death tend to captivate me, particularly her underlying themes of sexual intercourse with her horse, which is illustrated in her poem "Ariel."Jonny Unamus
Parks, Czech Republic
Friday, April 6, 2001
Plath's lost novel -- evidence found in Emory Papers. "Among the finds were manuscript pages of draft poems by Sylvia Plath which had drafts of Ted Hughes poems on the reverse side, and material relating to Falcon Yard, the lost novel Sylvia Plath had been working on. Some of these have been reported in issues of Emory Magazine (eg. Emory Magazine: Autumn 1997, In Brief)."Ivy Imbuido
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Wednesday, April 4, 2001
Published in the UK: Collected Children's Stories of Sylvia Plath; ISBN: 0571207561 for about four quid (ships within one day). Featured are the two previously released books The Bed Book and The It-Doesn't-Matter Suit and published for the first time ever Mrs Cherry's Kitchen!
Also recently released is the long anticipated The Other Sylvia Plath by Tracy Brain (ships within two or three days).Peter K Steinberg
Brighton, MA, USA
Wednesday, April 4, 2001
Why was The Bell Jar ever banned from the US during the late 70's to early 80's?Elizabeth Lee
Maryland, USA
Wednesday, April 4, 2001
Jim Long or everyone in the Forum please tell me if the book COLLECTED POEMS contains ALL of Plath's poetry or just a few poems from ARIEL and each of her other books? I'm a high school student and am interested in reading all her books, but in case COLLECTED POEMS contains all of it I'd rather buy it all in one to be able to read in my free time at school.Thank you very much!!!Manuella
Los Angeles, USA
Wednesday, April 4, 2001
I would like to respond to various threads of thought in the Forum's discussions. With regards to my favorite journal passages---I don't think I have just one, but I agree with one of Jim's choices...the entry where she describes children putting flowers in her hair is wonderful. Another passage I find interesting is the one where she talks about America dying "like the Roman Empire died, while the legions fail and the barbarians overrun our tender, steak-juicy, butter-creamy million dollar stupendous land..." I find it interesting that passages like these were excluded from the abridged journals. People have criticized Plath for exploiting historical and political situations without understanding or caring about them,so that she could use them for fodder in her personal poetry. I think that the "complete" journals show to a much fuller extent just how sensitive and aware she was of these things. One has to wonder why this passage and ones about Nagasaki were excised from the abridged version, and at whose request---Ted's or Aurelia's?
In response to Ashley, looking for details...the details of Sylvia Plath's suicide have been accounted in The Savage God by A. Alvarez; Rough Magic, by Paul Alexander; and a number of other sources. As for knowing when certain poems were published,and how they fit into her life's chronology, refer to SP's Collected Poems (which identifies their chronology) and crossreference them with her journals. Another excellent book (I think) is Steven Gould Axelrod's Sylvia Plath, The Wound and the Cure of Words. It explores the tangles of Plath's life and writing. Although I do not agree with all of his conjectures, I found many of his perspectives and insights compelling. Has anyone else read this book? I would love to see and respond to some discussion about his theories on her work.Melissa Carl
York, USA
Monday, April 2, 2001
I was wondering if anybody knew from which poem the much used SP quote 'I talk to God but the sky is empty' comes from as it is bugging me.Martin McGann
Whitley Bay, UK
Monday, April 2, 2001
Earlier Messages - March 2001 and Before
Send us your thoughts/ideas/comments
This forum is administered by Elaine Connell, author of Sylvia Plath: Killing The Angel In The House. 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.
The forum is intended as one where discussion and exchange of points of view/information about SP's work can take place. It is not really a site which promises to do students' thinking/essays for them. Before posting to the Forum students seeking help on theses, essays, presentations and analyses of particular poems are advised to look at the extensive bibliography provided, the FAQ section and the individual poem analyses present on the site. All the books mentioned in the bibliography are useful to Plath studies and can be easily obtained Amazon.com in the US or Amazon.co.uk in the UK, libraries and (in UK) the Inter Library Loan System. Reading the Forum contributions and archives thoroughly will also give any student a good idea of what the major questions are about Plath's work. Your work should be given far higher grades if you can work out your own answers.
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