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Showing posts from February, 2011

Friday Links...

A few random Sylvia Plath links to pass on today... Moby has a song entitled "Victoria Lucas" on a e.p. released recently. Watch the video & listen to the song on YouTube or via Moby’s website . The video is quite Plathian, or, should I say Lucasian. While you are at it, perhaps you will want to download all these songs with Sylvia Plath in the title from Amazon.com’s MP3 Download site... Interesting Plath news out of Taipei, Taiwan “ Taiwanese theater troupe invited to perform in France .” And from earlier this month, with thanks to Jescie, we have this from the Lisa Simpson Book Club . "Wish I Had a Sylvia Plath" has found its way to Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles Broadwayworld.com . The play opens March 12, 2011 with reception to follow. Performances are Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 7pm (No performances Thursdays March 10th & 17th). ROGUE MACHINE presents at The Lounge Theatre located at 6201 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, Calif

Plath Profiles 4 Deadline Approaching!

The deadline for Plath Profiles 4 is approaching. It is April 1, 2011. Submissions must be received by this date to be considered for inclusion in the annual Summer issue. Please read the submission guide page for important information on how to submit your work and to read about Gail Crowther's guest edited special section on Plath and Place. Plath Profiles is an interdisciplinary journal for Sylvia Plath studies.

Plath items at Bonhams

The two Sylvia Plath items that were up for auction today at Bonhams of San Francisco met with mixed results. Estimated to sell for between $15,000-$20.000. Lot 2211 , the November 23, 1959 typed letter signed, which included her poem "Lament" failed to sell. Estimated to sell for between $1,500-$2,000, Lot 2212 , a price-clipped copy of a Victoria Lucas The Bell Jar sold for $2,074, also inclusive of the buyers premium. Time will tell if the letter eventually sells. If The Bell Jar sold to a dealer it may come back on the market, expect a significant mark-up in price.

Sylvia Plath: By the numbers

Sylvia Plath’s first published poem was in August 1941. Her first published artwork was a year later in August 1942. This kind of got me thinking: what was Plath’s most successful month in which her work was published? Working with Stephen Tabor’s excellent Analytical Bibliography - as well as publications that I have found that he did not include/know about - I was able to come up with the following counts. January - 16 February - 11 March - 18 April - 27 May - 27 June - 14 July - 14 August - 24 September - 8 October - 39 November - 26 December - 12 Undated/Unknown - 3 I had to set some limits. Well, I did not have to... But I felt like I should and so I worked with known publications from 1941 through the end of 1963. The reason for this being that although some of those 1963 poems were submitted by Ted Hughes on Plath’s behalf after her death, a number of the publications were, in fact, submitted by Plath prior to her death. Also, for quarterlies I assigned publication in Winter to

Plath Typed Letter Signed for sale this weekend!

Our friend in poetry and Plath, Jett Whitehead ( Poetryjett ) just let me know about two Plath items that are at auction this weekend, Sunday 13 February, at Bonham's in San Francisco. The first is a first edition Victoria Lucas Bell Jar in a handsome-looking, though price-clipped dust wrapper ( Lot 2212 ) and the other item is far more rare, a typed-letter signed from Plath to a Miss Reutlinger dated 23 November 1959 ( Lot 2211 ) The good folks at Bonhams and supplied very excellent images of both the book and typescript letter. If anyone wants to buy it for me, my birthday is coming up in five short months and I'd be very happy to wait... I'm not sure how long the links will be valid, so click now!

An Inessential Book

First off, please read P. H. Davies' review of this book , it is far better written and more balanced than what you will read below... I wrote this last October but waited until the book was officially published in 2011. Lucas Myers's An Essential Self: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, A Memoir is a book to skip. This review is no good, but I couldn't help but write it. When I was growing up my parents always told me "If you don't have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all." But as an adult I feel like I can something that is not nice. This book kills the genre of the Sylvia Plath memoir for me. And it is more about Myers and Hughes than Plath; but only the latter really holds any interest for me. Myers, I have been told by several people, is a nice man. And I believe it. So if you are reading this Mr. Myers, sorry... An Essential Self , grew out of his essay "The Voices of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes." which appeared in Saint Botolph’s Review

A doodle of Plath

Flavorwire.com posted last week on "Idle Doodles by Famous Authors." Included, as you may have anticipated, is a doodle by Plath (complete with image) from her 1945 diary ... The image appears to be borrowed from " Kool Things ."

First Faber Bell Jar Poster

If you are like me and you eat, sleep and breath The Bell Jar , why not put it on your wall? Faber is selling a poster of the cover of their 1966 first edition of Sylvia Plath’s novel . The item description reads, “Designed in 1966 by Faber and Faber / Shirley Tucker. Printed at high quality colour on 150gsm silk matt paper. The image is surrounded by a white border and is B2 size, 70 x 50cm.“ Also, thanks to Melanie for the following link to a different Plath-related poster available via Cafe Press. They (Cafe Press) do have other Plathiana available . Some are more tasteful - and accurate - than others.