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Showing posts from June, 2011

Plath Profiles 4: A sneak preview?

Just an FYI: if you "like" Plath Profiles on Facebook (because when you like something on Facebook, you officially like something), you may be in for a treat. The Guest Editor (Gail Crowther, aka, Gee Cee) and I are going to post sneak previews on Facebook between now and then. When is then? Then is when Plath Profiles 4 will be live... Get your Plath on!

A Hodge Podge of Sylvia Plath Stuff

Ted Hughes, in April, received a blue plaque in North Tawton . Thanks to Cath for the link. The poor Sylvia Plath letter that failed to sell in February through Bonham’s, also failed to sell in a June 22 auction and Bonham’s in New York , and for a reduced estimate. I have about $45 dollars to my name so in another year, at this rate, I might be able to buy it! If you have an estimated 3,000-5,000 GBP to spare, on July 14, Sotheby’s is auctioning a self-portrait of Plath dated 7/25/1949. I hardly see a resemblance but it must be real. See Lot 98 . Plath Profiles 4 is in production, it is looking like it will be just under 400 pages of great greatness. Expect publication in the first week or so of July. Details to follow!

Sylvia Plath's Playlist?

While Plath Profiles 4 is being put together - and it is, indeed, in the process of being put together - I needed a bit of an escape, hence this post. If Sylvia Plath had an iPod or a mp3 player, what do you think would be on her playlist? Here are a list of some possibilities, that for some reason or another, seem Plathian to me: Haemoglobin - Placebo Pounding - Doves Sabotage - The Beastie Boys Cold Hard Bitch - Jet Itsumo - Feeder Head On - The Jesus and Mary Chain My Life Would Suck Without You - Kelly Clarkson Policy of Truth - Depeche Mode My Little Empire - Manic Street Preachers 66 - The Afghan Whigs I Believe in the Thing Called Love - The Darkness Plainsong - The Cure Ghost - The Indigo Girls Beautiful - Christina Aguilera Walk on the Ocean - Toad the Wet Sprocket Closer - Nine Inch Nails Scattered Black and Whites - Elbow Bees - Belly Found Out About You - Gin Blossoms Street Spirit (Fade Out) - Radiohead Round Here - Counting Crows Who’s Gonna Ride

Jim Long: Rest in peace

This afternoon Sylvia Plath scholarship lost a friend. James H "Jim" Long passed away after a nearly year-long battle with cancer. Many of you will remember Jim's contributions both to the Sylvia Plath Forum and to this blog. He was a passionate expert, even-toned, and very giving man: and this is just towards Plath. I never met Jim but he was a friend. Jim published three poems in Plath Profiles 2 in 2009.  In 2008, he published his first collection of poems, Between Wings: Poems . Rest in peace Jim.

Plath Profiles 4 Update

Plath Profiles 4 is nearly ready to be put together. We have more than 50 contributions this issue. Ok, 51. Visitors to the Plath Profiles website will notice that we have now a detail from Volume 4's cover which is of Kristina Zimbakova's "Out of the Shoe and into the Cauldron." Kristina is as you know a Macedonian artist and Plath scholar, and recently she has seen a selection of poems of Anne Sexton's which she translated published. Congratulations Kristina! The left hand navigation on Plath Profiles ' website was updated recently too and you will find a link to the current issue, and beneath that a link to the archives. The archives are free and features both the issues and our various Call for Papers. The submissions page has been recently revised, too. If you are considering submitting to Plath Profiles - and we hope you do - please review the submission guidelines and do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions! We have one call for pape

New and old articles on Sylvia Plath

PH Davies has reviewed Heather Clark’s The Grief of Influence: Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes .  A wonderfully, beautifully written review. Recently I learned of a two articles that were previously not a part of any known Plath bibliography.  They are now a part of the one I am building... Reilly, Erlene. "Sylvia Plath: Talent Poet Tortured Women." Perspectives in Psychiatric Care 16:3. May 1978: 129-136. Holbrook, David. "The Agony of Sylvia Plath." Higher Education Quarterly 39:3. June 1985: 249-265. And then I also learned of this one, which was published well after Tabor's bibliography... Foster, A. V. M. and M. E. Edmonds. "The Roots of Ariel: Sylvia Plath and Her Father's Foot." Diabetic Medicine 12:7. July 1995: 580-584. And this one: Abse, Dannie. "The Dread of Sylvia Plath." The Two Roads Taken: A Prose Miscellany . London: Enitharmon Press, 2003. Other Matters: Thanks to ~VC for the following Plath reference from, OMG

Plath and Nostalgia

Last Friday I gave a brief paper entitled "A Perfectly Beautiful Time: Plath’s Nostalgia" in a panel organized by Steven Gould Axelrod called "Robert Lowell & His Circle" at the 22nd Annual American Literature Association conference in Boston. You will never guess the subject of my paper... True confession: I cheated a bit. For the main portion of the paper I used the introduction to my paper for Plath Profiles 4, which is titled "A Perfectly Beautiful Time: Sylvia Plath at Camp Helen Storrow," and wrote a brief introduction to connect it up a bit with Robert Lowell and his influence on Plath. And I thought maybe I could/should post that introduction here to maybe get a bit of conversation going on the subject of Plath and Lowell; and nostalgia as used in Plath's poetry (and other works, too), as learned from Lowell, particularly as I see it in his 1959 volume Life Studies .  Plath and Nostalgia is not a subject that has been explicitl