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Showing posts from May, 2008

Calling all book covers: Take two

A few months ago, I requested scans of book cover images of books by or about Sylvia Plath that were not already on my website A celebration, this . Two kind people sent me some images, which are now online! I am interested in images of books in foreign languages specifically, to boost the content on the Non-English page . But, I also know I have some gaps in books published in English. So, please help if can!

Review of Sylvia Plath by Marnie Pomeroy

Marnie Pomeroy's contribution to the Greenwich Exchange Literary Series, published in 2006, is one of the briefest introductions to Sylvia Plath available. Its brevity is much more of a shortcoming than it ought to be. Plath's life and writing are well represented in full-length biographical and critical studies; but there is a need still to introduce her to both younger readers and new readers. Many of these younger and newer readers will start and end their introduction to Plath on the internet. Fortunately, there are a few decent and thorough web pages about Plath. That being said, there is - or there should be - a responsibility to make printed introductions readable, factually accurate and, as much as can be, authoritative while still being thorough given the limitations imposed by the series editor/publisher, etc. I found much to dislike in this book. Two examples of where the book goes wrong follow... On page 43, the author quotes a journal entry Plath made on 29 M

Links, reviews, etc. - Week-ending 17 May 2008

David Trinidad's article, published in the November/December 2006 American Poetry Review , "'Two Sweet Ladies': Sexton and Plath's Friendship and Mutual Influence", is online here . Trinidad is an the editor, along with Lisa Fishman, Arielle Greenberg, and Tony Trigilio, of the journal Court Green (published through Columbia College of Chicago). The current issue of Court Green features "a dossier on the poet Sylvia Plath". The issue is $10. To order your copy, please contact: Cora Jacobs, Managing Editor Court Green Columbia College Chicago English Department 600 S. Michigan Ave Chicago, IL 60605 Phone: 312/344-8212 Email: courtgreen@colum.edu Tim Kendall, Jo Gill, and the staff at the University of Exeter's Centre for South West Writing are building a web site "to promote the appreciation of the region’s many important creative writers." Check that link often as Plath is a featured writer and her page should be up soon

Sylvia Plath: Did you know...

Did you know that Sylvia Plath and the poet Adelaide Crapsey have several things in common? Crapsey, whose last name is unfortunate, is know for her cinquain poetry. In the cinquain, the poem is five lines long, and the syllabic pattern runs 2-4-6-8-2. Plath's poem "Mussel Hunter at Rock Harbor" is her most sophisticated, syllabic poem; though it is a far cry from the simplicity of Crapsey's cinquain. Here is a poem by Crapsey called "The Warning": Just now, Out of the strange Still dust . . . as strange, as still . . . A white moth flew . . . Why am I grown So cold? This calls to mind the last line of Plath's poem "The Bee Meeting", which concludes, "Whose is that long white box in the grove, what have they accomplished, why am I cold?" In Plath's line, grove and cold are internal slant rhymes. In Crapsey's poem, the second to last line ends with grown, which can be heard in Plath's grove. The end of Plat

Links, reviews, etc. - Week ending 10 May 2008

I realize I'm posting this weekly summary early this week, so hopefully nothing BIG will happen... Frieda Hughes came under fire in this article from London Telegraph . On 6 May, the Daily Hampshire Gazette ran an article on the Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Smith and mentions Julia Stiles' low-profile. This is a subscription newspaper, so anyone with the full-text please feel free to share! Anonymous posted a comment earlier in the week on Bookslut's blog post, Plathophilia: Rereading Sylvia . Lastly, I've added a few book covers to sylviaplath.info. They are a paperback edition of Ariel , a mass market cover of The Bell Jar , and one I'm really excited with, a movie-tie in edition of The Bell Jar from the 1979 original adaptation. I also scanned the back of this edition.

Letter from Julia Stiles regarding The Bell Jar

The following is a letter from Julia Stiles to Carol Christ, the President of Smith College, regarding the adaptation of The Bell Jar on which she is currently working. Ms. Stiles asked me to post it here as it also addresses Plath's readers. May 1, 2008 Dear President Carol Christ, It was a privilege attending last weekend's 75th anniversary Symposium on Sylvia Plath at Smith College, and I wanted to thank you for the invaluable resources made available by your colleagues. Joining me at the conference was a screenwriter I have been working with for the past three years to adapt The Bell Jar into a film. Karen Kukil and Aubrey Menard, who hosted the event, were extremely generous with their time, showing us scores of photos, early drafts of The Bell Jar, Plath's typewriter, and a number of other artifacts in Smith's impressive archives. While at dinner Saturday evening in The Alumnae House, a fourth year student asked me if we were planning to make a "happy, ligh

Links, reviews, etc. - Week ending 3 May 2008

This is the round-up on goings-on this week! Recently found book titled An homage to Sylvia Plath by Jean Elizabeth Ward on Amazon.com . The book is published by Lulu.com , and came out on 22 February 2008. The price is $22.50 and the ISBN is 143570309X. Books by lulu.com appear to be self-published and/or print-on-demand. Seven Stories Press recently published Live through this: On creativity and self-destruction , edited by Sabrina Chapadjiev. The book features an essay on Sylvia Plath by Daphne Gottlieb. I have it, but have yet to read it. Soon, soon... Beautiful posters and notecards from the Symposium and for sale through the Mortimer Rare Book Room's website . On 24 April, The Smith College Sophian , a Smith College newspaper, also ran a story on the Plath Symposium. Hopefully the link stays active. On Tuesday 29 April, the Boston Globe ran a story on the Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Smith, highlighting the attendance of Julia Stiles for the purpose of research for

The Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Smith College

The Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Smith College, held on 25-26 April, brought together a wide variety of Plath's readers. Nearly all the papers and presentations given were first heard at the Oxford Symposium in October 2007. Additional content included a fascinating paper by Susan van Dyne ("'The endless gladitorial event': Who was Hughes as Plath's editor?"), author of Revising Life: Sylvia Plath's Ariel Poems , and a panel of friends of Sylvia Plath, which included Judith Kroll, who read letters they received from either Sylvia Plath or, in the case of Kroll, from Aurelia Plath. Attendance consisted mainly of people from the Northampton area, but some drove in from all over New England, or flew in from places as far as Texas and Japan. The events kicked off on Friday with a community reading of Ariel: The Restored Edition . Plath fans, scholars, poets, and other distinguished guests read the poems one by one. Phil McCurdy began the reading with a