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Contributions: June 2001
See contribution on "Mirror" received today,Thursday, June 28, 2001
Re: Plath's suicide, her depression, and Sylvia Plath day. Depression is a disease that blots out rational thinking, which is what makes the disease so damaging and tragic. Perhaps, to some, depression (and suicide) seems selfish, yet if it is, it's a selfishness that severe depression suffers have little control over. Suffers would most likely, if offered the opportunity, trade in this "selfishness" for stability any day. I think that in today's Prozac world and with depression often being glamorized as an intrinsic sign of artistic greatness, the real tragic dimensions of the disease get lost in the fervor. Sylvia may have thought her children would be better without her, who knows? From her poems and her journals, her writing indicates that she certainly loved her children and to say that her act was reprehensible belies an understanding of depression, which is not merely a case of the blues. It is a disease that overwhelms even the immeasurable love bonding a parent to a child. To say she should have just snapped out of it is akin to telling a schizophrenic to "act normal" and to stop listening to the voices in his or her head.
I assume that Sylvia Plath day is intended to celebrate her life and her talent. As a poet and an academic achiever, she is worthy of admiration. Her suicide is not to be admired but to be lamented.Pamela
Boston, USA
Thursday, June 28, 2001
Here's a question... I was at Smith College the other day reading some of Plath's unpublished letters to Marcia "Marty" Brown. Plath is consistently quick-witted, sensitive and in full-bloom. Much has been made recently of Plath's new found joie de vivre in the complete Journals. But, my question is... was Plath's zest for life NOT evident in the original abridged Journals? Why, why not?Peter K Steinberg
Brighton, MA, USA
Wednesday, June 27, 2001
Just thinking about some of the postings here regarding Ted Hughes' influence on Sylvia's writings, and whether or not he drove her to the edge at last...I believe she was driven from the time she gave her mother the "contract" signifying the death of all trust for her deceased father, and future "fathers". Her dating life was a long series of attempts to resurrect that dance, to connect with the very idealistic figure which "killed" her the first time, as a girl. Her life was haunted by that search, and, upon finding the closest match possible, proceeded from thereon to the resolution, the final contract. But had she never met Hughes, it would have been interesting, would her work have evolved as intensely towards such a culmination? Or would it have wandered the groves, carving inroads to a place unfamiliar? I would tend to think Sylvia's gift was her very connection to the darkness, it was her voice before the words assembled.
Having just read 'Letters Home', these are my thoughts at present. It is my first "Plath experience", and now I am going to read, read, read whatever I can find of her work!Pauline
Burnt River, Canada
Wednesday, June 27, 2001
What is it about Sylvia Plath that enthralls millions who read her poems, and The Bell Jar?????????????
Well, for me it's kind of me wanting to understand her and her 'madness'. My mum's mentally ill you see and i'd like to be able to understand it especially because what my mum has got is hereditery (she's got manic depression, so has her brother and sister and her mother killed herself), and I guess I somehow feel I should be next. Plath just draws me in to her world-I can't ever see myself doing that(killing myself)but I can see why she might have done it.I only wish she hadn't succeeded in her attempt and was here so we could see what she would have done with her life.I'm sure it would have been great whatever it was.Maybe she would have found someone to love as much as she loved Ted.Karen McGorie
Derby, UK
Wednesday, June 27, 2001
Sylvia Plath Day!!! come on, what's the world coming to???? The mayor, 1000 petitions, has the mayor ever read a poem, good poems admitted, but come on, role model? she was an unhinged 30 year old who left 2 children; on a basic human level how can you do that? Depression does not justify suicide when you've got children, I've got a 2 year old and the thought of leaving him just horrifies me, I know 'one law for the ox and the lion is oppresion' but there are are basic human principles that shouldn't be transgressed! ;;;It's what made her poetry great.....but a Sylvia Plath day....hhhhmmmmm??????Paul
Todmorden, England
Monday, June 25, 2001
Just to say that Frieda Hughes was promoting her new (second) book of poems on Radio 3 last night. She seems keen to establish herself as a poet now that she has started writing for adults.Douglas Clark
Bath, England
Saturday, June 23, 2001
Ivy, I don't know if I should say this, but,(ha ha) I think anyone like Paul Alexander has a bit of a Cheek attending such days as this, proclaiming himself as a Plath aficionado just because he has the backing of a large publishing house! Just read his biography, tis cringeworthy, he just assumes he's inside Sylvia Plath's head and talks on her behalf...you cannot do that! That first chapter 'The blue hour', good reading, but completely made up, and his very last line 'he noticed something that seemed to explain much about what had transpired before her death and after.The plot next to Plath's is empty.' Pardon? what is that all about; I think he's getting at Ted Hughes, no, I know he's calling Ted Hughes, but it's a complete untruth, for the sake of literature, it may sound good for the ending of a book, like a haiku even, and it may have been true when Mr Alexander was there, but there's a guy called Horace in it now, with no implications regarding any transpirations about Sylvia's life or death. He's just said that for literary effect! hhhmmmmm, it's so obvious, and annoying when people write these things and you just know it's just completely meaningless....dust in the wind, I'd better calm down now and have a coffee.....Paul
Todmorden, England
Saturday, June 23, 2001
Sylvia Plath day in Northampton, Mass. on 27th October 2001The mayor of the city of Northampton, MA (where Sylvia Plath attended Smith College)--because of the force created by over 1,000 petition signers--recently declared a SYLVIA PLATH DAY. A big event is being planned for October 27th 2001, participants will include Paul Alexander, Linda Wagner and others.
If you would like to get involved with the organisation or want to help financially or otherwise please contact:
Michael Haley
for the Sylvia Plath Day Organizing Committee
p.o. box 281
Northampton, MA 01061
U.S.A.
e-mail: s.plath@excite.com
phone: +1 (413) 536-6939Ivy
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Friday, June 22, 2001
Housed in the Rare Book Collection, Wilson Library, U of Nth Carolina: Sylvia Plath. Colossus. New York: Knopf, 1962. First American edition of Plath's first full volume of poetry. This copy is especially interesting as it is inscribed by the author to Alfred Young Fisher, her former poetry professor at Smith College. The book is accompanied by a letter to Professor Fisher, affirming the importance of his teaching for her and requesting his intervention in securing several reams of pink Smith College memo paper, which she commonly used for early drafts of her poems. She enclosed a sample of the paper with the letter.
She certainly fetishised that pink paper!Ivy
Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Friday, June 22, 2001
Paul, you should have said, "Sylvia?" and seen how the cat responded...Kenneth Jones
Berkeley, USA
Friday, June 22, 2001
Tis funny reading about what to read or not, and how it influences us; between the age of 25 to 30 I was in a massive depression, and all I did was drink massive quantities of alcohol and read Sylvia Plath all day! Then I read Gary Snyder and cheered up immediately....spooky......
Talking about spooky, just a little point; Todmorden is only a couple of miles outside Heptonstall, and we regularily visit the graveryard, but the first time we did, about 7 years ago, we didn't have a clue where Sylvia Plath's grave was, and as we entered the graveyard, a cat jumped out in front of us (I've still got the picture), then proceeded on to Sylvia Plath's grave, it just walked straight into the middle of the graveyard and jumped on her grave...spooky
Paul
Todmorden, England
Thursday, June 21, 2001
Who should read Plath? Tempting to say everyone but then those humans out there with an indirect line to Plath as Mother Earth would end up topping themselves. I first read Plath as a Junior in college. And for the first year or so I still didn't know how to read her without feeling despondant. But I also didn't mature as quickly as others that could digest her works so well & I'm a twin so I'm only half a person anyway.The fascinating aspect of reading Sylvia Plath to me is reading what cannot be easily read. The uncollected poems, stories, etc. I'm not so much an expert on what's published but I've read that. I like reading the high school period poems, stories and articles because there are moments of sheer harbinger. There are moments where I feel I don't need another cup of coffee. If you take the published and acclaimed poem "Pursuit" from 1956 Plath states explicitly that she one day "I'll have her death of him." The "him" being Hughes, the panther that stalks.
I was discussing yesterday with John Hopkins of Wales, who is in Boston now, about the catalyst for Plath's poems as we walked to Blossom Street. The catalyst is Ted Hughes. There are a lot of people out there that think he's a bastard. He might have been but you have to take into account how he influenced her. There are two sides to this three-sided coin, I know. But, Hughes made pages and pages of subjects for poems. (Copies may be obtained from Smith.) Time and time again there is either a note by Plath or a check mark as being done. The most famous is "The Moon and the Yew Tree," lesser acknowledged is the 'middle' poem, 1961's "The Surgeon at 2 A.M." One can expect that by tapping into Hughes subjects Plath has a trickle of other ideas that spawned off drafts. That being taken into cosideration Hughes may be credited, somehow, for at least 35 poems.
Very few people have ever denied Plath's last poems as anything but brilliant. Hugh Kenner and Hal Bloom are the two that I can think of immediately. Plath's last poems are the basis, the foundation stone, for her fame today. The whole of her collection did win the Pulitzer. The early poems are so skilled and proper and I see the merit. Paul or Todmorden alluded to the key to Plath, though, the poems get better as time moves on. I am not sure if those poems would've existed in nearly the same form had Ted Hughes and Assis Wevill not been naughty. The voice, the feistiness I believe was in Plath all along. I am not sure that Plath would've either written The Colossus poems or lived as long as she did or longer without Ted Hughes. A. Alvarez says it is "The Moon and the Yew Tree" that really exhibited the change in Plath's voice. A more obvious poem would be the Yadoo written "The Colossus" or "Mushrooms" or "The Stones." One could very easily find a poem from an earlier year that best shows Plath's change in voice & style?? Plath recognised, as early as 1956 (or earlier), that she lacked a father figure. She saw this in Ted Hughes. His practice of poetry was equally intense in 1956 as that of Sylvia Plath's. They grew exponentially together in the coming years. He was in many ways a teacher to her, like her father might've been able to be to his daughter.
I am not certain if High School students should read Plath. Read, study? The students on Dawson's Creek are the exception. (I just confessed to so much.) But I'm not sure there are many teenagers out there like, like that. But, if the H.S.'ers don't read her they might be ill prepared as college students to accept the consequences of her life along with there ever changing lives. That being said, I'd go back and say that she should be taught in high school, but like buying a package of cigarettes, the poet laureate of the country or the world should have a warning label advising that Plath's life not be so easily accepted as mirroring their own lives.
Peter K Steinberg
Brighton, MA, USA
Thursday, June 21, 2001
Well, that's the heart of the old debate, isn't it...Anne Stevenson saying, after researching Plath for the bio, she just didn't think even the greatest poetry was worth that much suffering; an unanswerable question, that--but, as Hugh Kenner said, personally, it didn't do Plath much good--it killed her; and Kenner also reported, as a teacher, having to talk down other Platholites from following her example. Not an academic qestion for me, since the night I boarded the BART train in Berkeley, and a girl with flame red eyes got on next to me, looked at the pile of Plath books on my lap and said, "Oh yeah, we had that in high school senior English, it's Black Sabbath stuff," and pulled open the Bell Jar at random and started reading aloud--and it was the page where Esther is cutting her wrists; so I closed the book and said really, you shouldn't read this when you're ripped--bad juju...and this, I still believe. ...and so I gave her a book of science essays by Asimov......!
--So, the question is, who should read it, and when? And who shouldn't? Having a hot line to mother earth just put her in it. Alternatives?...Kenneth Jones
Berkeley, USA
Thursday, June 21, 2001
Kenneth....I like your posting, it's good to read someone writing like you, you've got a good style...."black undertow gone beserk" love it! great line. Just a little point though; I am vertical, but would rather be horizontal? the flowers would have time for me??? It's a major death-wish poem!!!She just wants to be underground with the earth....tis spooky, also, I think her 'middle period' poems are just that, middle period! bland, naff etc!!!(well not naff)but her last poems are awesome!!!! there's a power there, an other worldly influence, the lines and the words she chooses are just great together, it's like she had a hot-line to mother earth - straight to the source! I think her middle period was just a middle period, but from 1960 onwards, she just took off and flew, poetically that is.......Paul
Todmorden, England
Wednesday, June 20, 2001
re "I Am Vertical";I am trying to remember who it was who said they thought it was poems of Plath's middle period (roughly, "Crossing the Water" and "Winter Trees") that held up best, and I always thought this was Exhibit A--for agreeing with my snap judgments about Plath--which was that the early period poems sometimes lingered the wrong way on the tongue because the language was a bit too gilded and ornamental; while the late poems seemed more like splashes of hot magma than anything else--bright scalding and deadly, but out of balance because not quite human, more gargantuan than--most people. (Dare one say 'exhilarating, but awful?'--like any deadly spectacle of nature)--Of course, that's like debating whether a slope is uphill or downhill, it's all in the observer, your flaws are your virtues etc...
but the middle period were "graceful and austere", balanced. The earlier poems were a knight's armor, the later ones a black undertow gone berserk; the middle period had the virtues of balance, Janus-faced as a mandala, yin-yang harmony.
Of course, as a Libra, what else would I see...
But I really do think those middle poems were the best examples of what Oates meant in her review of "Winter Trees", in saying that Plath was our muse of exquisite heartbreak. --not that they lacked for enigmas (read 'An Appearance' lately?)--but the overall mood of 'I am Vertical' is, in its way, sheerly lovely--and few Plath poems are that. It sounds, neither like sledgehammer death-knell, or rhetoric, but, for once, like a simple, unemotionally caught, absolute truth.
Kenneth Jones
Berkeley, USA
Wednesday, June 20, 2001
Tuesday, June 19, 2001: new contributions to the Lady Lazarus, Daddy and Poems inspired by Sylvia Plath sections,
I like very much the poem "I am vertical". It is very short but so powerful, so moving. When you look at poetry discussions or analysis, it is always the same few poems that are discussed (Lady Lazarus,daddy,tulips...). So I would like to know what you (people on the forum) think of that poem.
Courtry, France
Wednesday, June 13, 2001
Tracy Brain's ' The Other Sylvia Plath' opens with a quotation from a radio onterview that Plath did in 1961 where she claims her poems deal with the 'things of this world.'That Plath's poetry deals with matters 'beyond her own skin' (to use a Brain heading), as opposed to the more familiar belief that it deals strictly with her personal life's story, amounts to the principal theme of the book. This is the 'other' Sylvia Plath of the title. For the most part, Brain takes this 'other' person as a given; only periodically providing supporting evidence for her existence. And maybe for this reason, I find her book discursive--a polite way for saying it rambles a lot. Each chapter reads like a separate essay, focusing on a different subject. These include Plath's transatlantic status (Brain prefers the word 'midatlantic'), her envirommentalism, and a chapter on 'The Origins of The Bell Jar'. A book which gives a more cohesive defense of Plath's interests in 'the thi! ngs of the world' is Al Strangeways 'The Shaping of Shadows'. In a way, Strangeways book provides the groundwork for 'The Other Sylvia Plath.'
Dispite this, I think Brain does a great job uncovering relevant unpublished material from the Plath archives, and she has many interesting and provocative things to say on a broad number of subjects. I particularly like her discussion of how living in both the United States and England affected Plath's outlook and how this spread into her poetry. This seems like an obvious point but I don't recall it being discussed elsewhere in such detail. I don't always agree with Brain's interpretations, particularly when it comes to Plath's late poems. I'm not exactly sure what Andriana means by Brain being 'too literal', but I probably agree with her. One of the fascinating aspects of a Plath poem is the contrast between its strong confident voice and its elusive meaning.
The final chapter deals with the relationship between Plath and Ted Hughes. It's a jolt to suddenly get thrown into that eternal fire. As usual, Brain moves around a lot, including a fine discussion of Birthday Letters, her main point being that in order to 'get to their poems' it is necessary to understand the literary conversations between the two poets. This is fair enough I guess. I agree with her statement that the 'Howls and Whispers' poems should be considered as part of Birthday Letters. These last poems show a more extreme Hughes: someone more angry and resentful, and often hallucinating over his dead wife. They are powerful and disturbing in their feeling of personal hurt. Brain explains that none of these poems can be quoted directly because they can't be reproduced in changed conditions. Too bad because there are only 110 copies on the volume in existance. I found a copy in the rare books section of the NY Public Library. Dispite the natural sympathy one might feel for his predicament, by limiting the access of these painful poems, Hughes once again provides ammunition to those who find it easy to suspect his motives.Paul Snyder
New York City, USA
Monday, June 11, 2001
I would like to know what those of you who read through Tracy Brain's The Other Sylvia Plath think of it beyond the unanimous enthusiasm expressed after reading the first chapter. I myself was enthralled by the promise it held, and now that I have finished reading the book, must say I am impressed and delighted at the startling discoveries and new insights and unexpected points of view and subtle deductions (I especially like the idea of a counterpoint between texts on page and back of page). Yet, I was also slightly irritated throughout chapters 2 and 3, but couldn't quite say why. Then I eventually felt I had pinpointed the reason: TB seemed to me to be too literal, as if she were saying SP was actually writing about midatlanticism, about pollution, about a tree: for instance, her saying that the choice, in Elm, of a tree as the central persona of the poem indicates its environmentalist preoccupations seems to me reductive of the tree itself, like a mutilation of the many more things the elm might have to say, and has said to human beings in the course of their interrelations since their appearance on the earth, a mutilation, that is, of the mythical implications that are attached to the tree, with their endless hinting to always further meanings.
But just as I was formulating this thought, Tracy Brain comes out with a declaration that she wants to be literal and to counter those readings of poets that "emphasise the metaphorical at the expense of the referential". At that point I was utterly confused: I see her point, and agree in a way, and yet well, I think I do miss a recognition of archetypal meanings behind words and images (and the archetypal is something more than the metaphorical). Perhaps it is just her choice of headlines - midatlanticism, environmentalism - that is reductive (while in elaborating on them she gives us beautiful insights) and feels as if they were taken up in order to prove a point "against".
Like the choice of never even acknowledging that Waking in Winter is about waking up after a bad dream! These are some of my fragmented thoughts in reading Tracy Brain's very intriguing book. Please excuse my English, and let me know your own ideas.Adriana
Sarzana, Italy
Wednesday, June 6, 2001
I went to see "Letters Home" shortly after deciding to do my poetry coursework on Sylvia Plath. I was doing "The Moon and the Yew Tree" and was feeling hopelessly stuck on the first line: "This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary"... Anyhow, along I went, with loads of tissues. The play was very enjoyable, very dynamic, and the actress's (Rosalind Blessed) American accent sounded, to me, pretty authentic. There were a couple of ideas I wasn't certain I quite understood, purely from the timing point of view, so I was going to see the play again; I also felt (like some of the people here have been saying about Meg Ryan) that the actress was somewhat miscast. It's fine if one doesn't know what Sylvia looked like, but having seen some pictures and read some descriptions of her I couldn't help thinking that Rosalind Blessed was a little too plump for the role... Despite all my negative criticism here I liked the play a lot, although there were times when I came very close to flooding myself and the neighbours. Some of the public seemed to treat that night's outing as pleasant entertaiment, enjoying their drinks, giggling with friends, bright-eyed. I guess that's all down to human perception, each throught the prism of his/her own personal experience.Pauline
Maidstone, Kent, England
Sunday, June 3, 2001
Beth,
There was some discussion of this movie of "Sylvia and Ted" on the Forum a couple of weeks ago. You'll be relieved to know that Meg Ryan is no longer involved (it's being made by the BBC) and Cate Blanchett is apparently set to play Sylvia. As I've said before, I think this is about the best choice they could have made for the role. I also think it's less important that the actress actually look like Plath (although I think CB will come close enough) than that she be enough of an actress to be able to get at the complexity and depth of the character. I hope we get to see it on this side of the Atlantic.Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Sunday, June 3, 2001
Cara,
For starters, there is a small book by Caroline King Barnard simply called "Sylvia Plath" (Twayne's United States Authors Series No. 309) that includes quite a bit of discussion of issues like stanza structure and syntax, etc. Also, in the book "The Art of Sylvia Plath: a Symposium", edited by Charles Newman (Indiana Univ. Press, 1970), there is an essay by John Frederick Nims entitled "The Poetry of Sylvia Plath: a technical analysis" that would be helpful to you.
Also, you might ask at your local library if they have a reference series called "Contemporary Literary Criticism". If you look at the Cumulative Index in the most recent volume, you will find many entries after Plath's name. These will be extensive excerpts from critical essays and reviews of her work. Scan through them for articles that discuss technical issues. Then you may want to look up the whole article in the original source; but often these long excerpts will be enough for your needs.
It's unfortunate that there is so little written about her prosody, since so much of her work, particularly early on, is based on conventional forms, even when used in unconventional ways, like the triplets that she uses so frequently and to such strong effect, and that are probably influenced by W.C. Williams.
She even dabbled in very strict forms, like the sestina based on the Rousseau painting ("Yadwigha, on a Red Couch, Among Lilies"). But the impact of her work has always been seen in terms of its extraordinary strong imagery and not for its technical prowess, which of course is an important element of its powerful music, which depends for much of its effect on her masterful use of alliter-ation and assonance.
Now, you take it from there.Jim Long
Honolulu, USA
Friday, June 1, 2001
Cara,
Look for an article entitled "The poetry of Sylvia Plath--A technical analysis" by John Frederick Nims in a book called THE ART OF SYLVIA PLATH, edited by Charles Newman. ISBN: 0-253-201-48-9. Published in 1970. It's probably out of print, but I bet you could find it in a good library or through inter-library loan. It has lots of information about her stanza forms, rhymes, rhythms, metaphors, diction, onomatopoeia, etc.Michael Gates
Jersey City, NJ, USA
Friday, June 1, 2001
