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Showing posts from June, 2014

A Ted Hughes Study Week (with Sylvia Plath relevance)

I received the following information from Terry Gifford of Bath Spa University: At Almàssera Vella: 'A Ted Hughes Study Week'  a residential poetry course with Professor Terry Gifford with Lorraine Kerslake 4-11 October 2014 "Spain Where I felt at home. The blood-raw light, The oiled anchovy faces, the African Black edges to everything" FIVE OF THE POEMS in Birthday Letters , Ted Hughes last collection, were based on his experience of Benidorm whilst on honeymoon there in 1956. During this week we will be visiting the house which he and Sylvia Plath shared in 1956 and the quay at Alicante where he described his new wife as: "… in moonlight, Walking the empty wharf at Alicante Like a soul waiting for the ferry," IN THIS RESIDENTIAL STUDY WEEK we will be, discussing aspects of Ted Hughes work including his poetry, prose essays and letters, and his work for children (much of How the Whale Became was written in Benidorm). The

Sylvia Plath: Covering the Crisis

This is a second post on recently found articles authored by (or in some instances possibly/probably authored by) Sylvia Plath. The first article was posted on 20 May 2014 . This post presents two new, additional newly found articles authored by Sylvia Plath. On 4 and 5 February 1952, Sylvia Plath attended two lectures on the campus of Smith College for Press Board. The lectures were conducted American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who was at the time professor of Christian ethics at Yale University. She wrote about covering the lecture in letters to her mother dated on 4 February and 6 February. The 6 February letter was included in Letters Home (page 83), but was printed—like many—under the postmark date of 7 February. Plath's calendar for 1952, held by Lilly Library, confirms that she attended the lecture, held in the Browsing Room of the Neilson Library, at 8:00 pm on 4 February; and that she had an "early writeup" due to the Springfield Union by 11 pm. A note o

10 Year Anniversary of Sylvia Plath (Great Writers)

This is not naturally something I would expect anyone to know, remember, or commemorate, but ten years ago this month my biography of Sylvia Plath (Chelsea House Publishers, Great Writers series) was published. (Amazon's page claims that it was published in April, but copies were not available until June. It also has a capsule review, still, for the wrong book. #OhWell.) To those who have read it: Thank you! To those who have not, it is available in both hardback and  Kindle editions , and also available  in many libraries around the world , and through some  used book shops . Sylvia Plath formed one sixth of an original series that also includes biographies of Barbara Kingsolver by Linda Wagner-Martin, Kurt Vonnegut by John Tomedi, J.R.R. Tolkien by Neil Heims, Charles Bukowski by Michael Gray Baughan, and Jack Kerouac by Jenn McKee. The series expanded the following year to include books on five gay and lesbian writers: Adrienne Rich by Amy Sickels, Allen Ginsberg b