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Showing posts from August, 2008

Links, reviews, etc. - Week ending 30 August 2008

Frances Leviston review's Drives by Leontia Flynn over at The Guardian (Buy it: UK US ). This is Flynn's second collection of poetry, the first being These Days (2004). People interested in fresh, new, wonderful, and real poetry will enjoy Flynn's work; but my reason for mentioning the book here - aside from my enjoyment of her poetry - is that the collection includes a poem titled "Sylvia Plath's Sinus Condition". Good news! I know what happened to my website! It was deleted! Fortunately, I have back-up files for it. I anticipate it will be back online before mid-September. I apologize for this downtime.

Sylvia Plath: Did you know...

Plath's first published poem appeared on August 10, 1941, in the The Boston Herald . There are two titles often attributed to this poem: "8-Year-Old Poet" and "Poem". Plath introduces her poem with a short letter to the editor. She writes, "Dear Editor: I have written a short poem about what I see and hear on hot summer nights." The poem then somewhat famously begins, "Hear the crickets chirping / In the dewy grass." But, did you know that the four lines of Plath's "Poem" appear - in a slightly expanded version - as the second stanza of a poem entitled "My House", which Plath also wrote in 1941. There are extra words here and there, but the lines are essentially the same. In the "My House" version, the second stanza begins, "At night I hear the crickets chirp / In green and dewy grass." The autograph manuscript poems held by the Morgan Library in New York City contains two copies of "My

A celebration, this is ... down

I apologize for any inconvience, but my website for Sylvia Plath went down sometime on 20 August. Hopefully it'll be up before too long...

Links, reviews, etc. - Week ending 16 August 2008

There is a new page on A celebration, this is . The new page is an index of known works by Sylvia Plath. Listed are all poems and prose (non-fiction and fiction) that I could find. Plus, there are a couple of poems referred to in sources but otherwise unknown. The page is located in the bibliographies section and I hope that you find it useful. If you know of a work not listed, please contact me via email. The first volume of Plath Profiles was published on Sunday 10 August, 2008.* It features really wonderful essays, poems, reviews, and artwork from a widely international group of scholars. Most of the essays were presented at the Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Oxford in October 2007 (and/or at Smith College in April 2008), but some are original, too. One step forward... Plath Profiles deeply apologizes for any inconvenience, however, it was necessary to make some editorial changes to Barbara Mossberg's Introduction to Elizabeth Gray's Wish I Had a Sylvia P

Plath Profiles Volume 1 Online now!!

Plath Profiles is now online! Contents: Editor's Note by W. K. Buckley Introduction to the Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium by Barabara Mossberg The Holiday Card by Helen Decker Sylvia Plath: The Playfulness of Time by Gail Crowther Too Close, Too Far: Death and Rebirth in Sylvia Plath's Ariel and Forough Farrokhzad's Another Birth by Leyli Jamali Daddy, Daddy/Mammy, Mammy: Sylvia Plath and Thomas Kinsella by Andrew Browne Parallel Destinies in The Bell Jar and On the Road by Hilary Holladay Sylvia Plath’s “The Magic Mirror”: A Jungian Alchemical Reading by Nephie Christodoulides Sylvia Plath’s Mirrors Reflecting Various Guises of Self by Dr.Neslihan Ekmekçioglu The Origins of Creativity and Destructiveness in the Life and Work of Sylvia Plath by Nick Owen An “I” Elated: The Ecstatic Self as Creative Process and Product in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath by Anna Dillon Words as Axes: Suffering as Catalyst of Meaning in Sylvia Plath’s Poetry by Elena

Links, reviews, etc. - Week ending 9 August, 2008

Lesley Mcdowell at The Independent reviews A Lover of Unreason: The Life and Tragic Death of Assia Wevill , by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev. It received five stars. Down in Adelaide, Georgia Gowell reviews The Secret Lives of Great Authors by Robert Schnakenberg, which features something on Plath. The cover of the book alone is worthy of a look. The New York International Fringe Festival is on at the moment, says The Village Voice . One piece on exhibit is Ariel View , which "is described by its creators as 'a collage of texts by and about Sylvia Plath'."

Plath Profiles update

This is just to say that Plath Profiles is nearly ready, look for an announcement here later this weekend or early next week. Please ensure you have a PDF reader on your computer as all documents will be in this file format. You can download a free version of Adobe PDF Reader here . The content will be delivered in two ways: 1) a complete document and 2) individual essays. We support printing on both sides.

Sylvia Plath collections: Papers of John L. (Jack) and Máire MacNeill Sweeney

University College Dublin Archives holds the papers of Jack and Máire Sweeney . Jack Sweeney was a friend to Plath and Hughes, but his contribution to the poetry world is most known because he was a long time curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room. Sweeney was instrumental in building the audio archive at the Woodberry Poetry Room, and first asked Ted Hughes read there in late 1957. In turn, Hughes was influential in securing the first reading Plath gave on Friday, 13 June 1958. In these papers at UCD are some correspondence between Plath, Hughes and Sweeney. In addition to the correspondence, they also have two photographs. In the absence of a list online, here follows an inventory the correspondence between Sweeney, Plath and Hughes. 1. Ted Hughes to Jack Sweeney, typed, 31 October 1957, 1 p. 2. Ted Hughes to Jack Sweeney, handwritten, 30 November 1957, 1 p. 3. Ted Hughes to Jack Sweeney, handwritten, Undated, 2 p. 4. Ted Hughes to Jack & Máire Sweeney, handwritten, 15 April 19

Sylvia Plath - Voices and Visions - Video on Demand

The Voices and Visions videos are available online via learner.org! Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Wallace Stevens, etc. Click here . Scroll down; requires registration but it's worth it.

Update regarding Plath Profiles

Plath Profiles , the new interdisciplinary journal for Sylvia Plath studies, is still being finalized, thank you all for your patience while we get it ready and get it right. It should be online this month. Volume 1 features essays, artwork, book reviews, and poetry by the following contributors: Smita Agarwal, David Alpaugh, Andrew Browne, W. K. Buckley, Nephie Christodoulides, Elena Ciobanu, Christi Concus, Bernadette Conroy, Gail Crowther, Helen Decker, Anna Dillon, Neslihan Ekmekçioğlu, Luke Ferretter, Gwynne Garfinkle, Ananya Ghoshal, Hilary Holladay, Leyli Jamali, Kara Kilfoil, Karen Kukil, Jessica Hritz McCort, Aubrey Menard, Barbara Mossberg, Patrick O'Connor, Nick Owen, Malin Pereira, Amanda Robins, Glenn Sheldon, Peter K. Steinberg, Jennifer Yaros, and Kristina Zimbakova. At last count, the issue is over 400 pages!