“The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God.” It’s Sylvia Plath’s Birthday

Today is Sylvia Plath’s birthday, and here’s an old post I wrote about her, with some new stuff added. It feels a bit strange to say “Happy birthday” to … uhm … someone who was so ultimately unhappy, and someone who took her own life … But I saw that it was her birthday today and I had to say something.

That’s a sketch she did of her own hands. She found drawing very relaxing. She would lose herself in it, and spent most of her honeymoon in Spain (a place she found almost unbearably upsetting – Ted Hughes, her husband, wrote a poem many years later called “You Hated Spain”) – anyway, she spent most of her honeymoon huddled over a sketch pad. She drew the streets, the fruit baskets, the fishing boats. Was there pleasure in it for her? I don’t know. I think it was a way to unhinge her brain for a moment, lose herself in the moment – where all she could do, all she was able to do, was just copy what she saw. She didn’t have to find the right word, or struggle with the poetry muse … she just had to sit down and copy what she saw. Ted Hughes wrote a poem, too, about her drawing.

I haven’t yet written a real piece on Sylvia Plath – because I know when I finaly get to it, it’ll be a doozy. It’ll take me hours of research, and compiling quotes, and snippets, and poems, and yadda yadda. I need to have the time to invest. That’s just the deal with certain topics – and Sylvia Plath is one of them. (However – now I have an incentive. RTG basically commissioned a piece from me.)

In honor of the birthday of this eventually astonishing poet (she didn’t start out that way, although she was certainly precocious – but NONE of her early work could prepare you for what her work became in the last 2 years of her life – it’s like another PERSON came out of her ….) – I have dug up some wonderful old photographs of her. She was a chameleon. She was an all-American girl. She was a bleached blonde beach-blanket-bingo girl. She was an intense prodigy. She was a depressive who had survived a suicide attempt her junior year in college. She was the woman who married the big brash English outdoorsman, and suddenly found herself fishing, and hunting, and tromping through the woods in galoshes. Who was she? I have no idea. But you can take a look at all the photographs and see how startling are the transformations. This is not just about the passage of time, and someone looking different as they grew older … this really seems to be about a shedding of selves (like she writes in Lady Lazarus, in one of my favorite lines: “my selves dissolving, old whores petticoats”) –

I look at the picture of the bodacious blonde at the beach:

This was from her summer of recovery from her suicide attempt in college. She spent months in an institution – and then went back to Smith to finish out her education. When summer came – she bleached her hair. Her mother – the controlling prudish Aurelia Plath – and yes, there’s enough information out there on this woman for me to feel completely comfortable labeling her as that – was shocked. She pretended to be supportive – but deep down, she wanted a conventional daughter. Well, sorry, Aurelia, ain’t never gonna happen. Sylvia tormented herself trying to be conventional (many of her problems arose from what she felt was expected from her – as a daughter, as a wife, as a woman, in general) – and bleaching her hair was part of a necessary rebellion. Also, she started having sex. Left and right. Willy nilly. No more good 1950s girl. That “be a good girl” thing had nearly killed her. Her doctor at the time encouraged this rebellion, and taught her about birth control, so she could at least have sex safely. This was a revelation to Sylvia. She was a very sexual person, passionate, kind of wild actually – even with all that “ooh, I’m a poetic prodigy” thing – and you know, the thing is – any type of artist will always be on the fringe of polite society. If an artist tries desperately to fit in to some mainstream – if an artist really worries about what an uptight person thinks of how he or she lives … then that artist just won’t survive. The strict rules on women at that time were fetters around Sylvia’s wrists. NOT CARING what people thought of her – was one of the biggest breakthroughs in her life. NOT CARING if people whispered, “She’s a slut.” And they did. Especially when she got to England on her Fulbright. Tapping into her REBEL, into her “I just don’t care” persona … was really important – but ultimately, it didn’t matter at all. Because once she got married and once she had kids – these old conventional “roles” started constricting her again (she writes about it extensively in her poems) … It seemed that there was an incompatability: between the poetess and the woman. Could she be a wife and ALSO a poet? What were the expectations of her? It did not help matters (although she might have thought it would) that she married not just another poet – but one of the most important up-and-coming poets in England – a man who eventually (years later) would be Poet Laureate. Like – Ted Hughes was a big deal. And he was on his way to becoming a big deal when Sylvia met him. How can two poets tryiing to make their names – live together? Was Sylvia expected to be a good 1950s wife? Ted Hughes insists (and he has also written extensively about it) that he did not expect that at all. When he first met Sylvia at a party – they both were drunk – and they basically found themselves in an empty room – making out ferociously. Sylvia bit his cheek so hard she drew blood. They were married 4 months later. THIS was their beginning. There was no nice good-girl 1950s courtship. They didn’t go out for sodas and a drive-in. No. They were bohemians, for God’s sake. They were poets. People like that don’t live by society’s rules, nor should they. (Especially if the rules are stupid.) But Ted, in some of his later poems, has described how baffled and hurt he was – after their marriage – when Sylvia suddenly got writer’s block. She had writer’s block for an agonizing year, year and a half – directly after their wedding. Hmmmm, coincidence? I think not. It seems apparent that Sylvia was so terrified of doing BETTER than her husband that … everything shut down. She then tried to be the perfect housewife – and … Ted, again, was hurt and confused by this. Where is that wild poetess? Where is my crazy American girl who shouts out lines of Chaucer to the cows? Why is she in the kitchen, tears running down her face, trying to bake pies? I mean … what has happened??

Then I look at the picture of her with her two kids (taken a month or so before she committed suicide) –

Actually, I believe her mother took that photograph during her fateful visit to her daughter. Sylvia was living in England – and her husband Ted Hughes had just left her for another woman. Comparing that photograph to the blonde bikini one – it;s hard to believe it’s the same person. Perhaps there’s something similar in the smile – there’s something phony in both smiles, to my eye. Anyway, I find it fascinating – perusing the photos of Sylvia Plath.

Not nearly as fascinating as her poems themselves which have never lost their power – no matter how times I have read them.

I have gone through a bunch of Plath phases – and I am sure I will go through more. I continue to re-visit her work, every couple of years … and re-read all those 1960-1963 poems again – sometimes in order – sometimes muddling it up – and every single time, even though I always have different responses, and sometimes one poem suddenly seems THE BEST when a couple years before it was another poem that was obviously HER BEST – but anyway, every single time I read those poems from her last 3 years, they take my breath away. They’re no picnic – they are bleak bleak bleak – especially if you read them chronologically. If you read them chronologically – you can feel herself get manic – in October of 62 – and she starts cranking out 2, 3, sometimes 4 poems a day. These were not pot-boilers, folks. These poems are now taught in colleges. These are the poems that would make her name. She wasn’t just scribbling out insane manic fantasies – these are highly intricate, passionate, unbeLIEVable poems. Obviously manic – when you see how many she was putting out a day … and then there is a brief falling away for a month – December … she was still writing, but obviously it was the calm before the storm. Then January and February 1963 came along – and I believe it was the coldest winter London had ever had – and her pipes froze – and she had no help, and two young babies – and things started getting worse and worse in her mind. And her art kicked in yet again – with ferocity and power. She would write these poems at 4 in the morning – her only time to herself. So you can feel the wheels start cranking again – in January, February – she wrote some of her best poems then. They are more frightening, however, than the October poems. She is staring at death, she is beginning to embrace the idea of death … Death is always a factor in Plath’s poems, but it takes on a new form in those last couple of poems. It is no longer just a fantasy, death is no longer a dream-lover in the night … she is now making plans. The rage of October (which gave us such poems as Daddy, and Poppies in October, and the entire fanTASTIC bee-keeping sequence) is now gone. And you can feel a chilling resolve creep into her work. She is getting ready to go.

I have interspersed the photos of Plath I found with some of my favorite of her poems.

I still need to do a big old Plath fest one day – I have too much to say about her, and need to get my thoughts together better.

In honor of her birthday, here’s one that she actually wrote about her upcoming birthday – in 1962. She wrote this poem, now one of her most well-known, on Sept. 30 1962 … right before the blast of creativity and rage that would fuel her through that painful next month. Sylvia always had a fatalistic thing with birthdays:

A Birthday Present

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?

I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking

‘Is this the one I am too appear for,
Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?

Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.

Is this the one for the annunciation?
My god, what a laugh!’

But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.

I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.

I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,

The diaphanous satins of a January window
White as babies’ bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory!

It must be a tusk there, a ghost column.
Can you not see I do not mind what it is.

Can you not give it to me?
Do not be ashamed–I do not mind if it is small.

Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity.
Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam,

The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.

I know why you will not give it to me,
You are terrified

The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,

A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.

I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,

No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.

If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear air.

But my god, the clouds are like cotton.
Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide.

Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in,
Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million

Probable motes that tick the years off my life.
You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine—–

Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole?
Must you stamp each piece purple,

Must you kill what you can?
There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me.

It stands at my window, big as the sky.
It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center

Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history.
Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger.

Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty
By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it.

Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil.
If it were death

I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes.
I would know you were serious.

There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday.
And the knife not carve, but enter

Pure and clean as the cry of a baby,
And the universe slide from my side.

That’s a picture of Sylvia from 1953 – right before her first suicide attempt. She was living with her mother – and her mother made her take shorthand classes and typing classes (again: there is something evil about that. That very same attitude is why Barbra Streisand has always had such long nails. People laugh at those nails, or make fun of Babs for them … but I see them, and I love them. Because to her – those nails meant freedom. Her mother was pretty much totally negative about Barbra’s actual goals – she wanted to have a normal daughter – so she signed her up for typing classes. In rebellion, Babs grew her nails to extraordinary length so that even if she wanted to learn how to type – she couldn’t. The nails got in the way. So when I see those nails now – on a 60 something year old woman – I smile. It’s a reminder.) There is a story here – of the mother who truly DOESN’T love her daughter. She doesn’t. Otherwise – she would love her for who she actually IS, not who she wants her to be. Aurelia Plath never got that. Sylvia, at the end of her life, was starting to come to terms with that. She writes, quite blatantly, in her journal, “I can never live near my mother again.” And her mother comes to visit in Oct. 1962 – right after Ted has moved out – to be with Assia Wevill – the woman he was having an affair with – and Sylvia was absolutely tormented by having her mother see her in such a weak moment. To her, it was unforgivable. She wrote her poem “Medusa” about that experience – which is, you know, shocking in its hatred, and anger. But again: poets who live by society’s rules and play well with others are usually not poets to be reckoned with. Sylvia coming to terms with her rage was part of her finding her voice.

“The Moon and the Yew Tree” was written in 1961 – and is considered a breakthrough – by those who have studied Plath’s work. In it – she finds some of that cold clear eerie imagery – that she will write about until the very end. She looks out her window and sees a moon, a church, and a black yew tree. It is a beautiful image – and yet … in the poem … it becomes a harbinger. Of death, doom.

And personally – I think the first line of this poem is one of her best lines ever.

The moon and the yew tree

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky —-
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness —-
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness — blackness and silence

Little Fugue

The yew’s black fingers wag:
Cold clouds go over.
So the deaf and dumb
Signal the blind, and are ignored.

I like black statements.
The featurelessness of that cloud, now!
White as an eye all over!
The eye of the blind pianist

At my table on the ship.
He felt for his food.
His fingers had the noses of weasels.
I couldn’t stop looking.

He could hear Beethoven:
Black yew, white cloud,
The horrific complications.
Finger-traps–a tumult of keys.

Empty and silly as plates,
So the blind smile.
I envy big noises,
The yew hedge of the Grosse Fuge.
Deafness is something else.
Such a dark funnel, my father!
I see your voice
Black and leafy, as in my childhood.

A yew hedge of orders,
Gothic and barbarous, pure German.
Dead men cry from it.
I am guilty of nothing.

The yew my Christ, then.
Is it not as tortured?
And you, during the Great War
In the California delicatessen

Lopping off the sausages!
They colour my sleep,
Red, mottled, like cut necks.
There was a silence!

Great silence of another order.
I was seven, I knew nothing.
The world occurred.
You had one leg, and a Prussian mind.

Now similar clouds
Are spreading their vacuous sheets.
Do you say nothing?
I am lame in the memory.

I remember a blue eye,
A briefcase of tangerines.
This was a man, then!
Death opened, like a black tree, blackly.

I survive the while,
Arranging my morning.
These are my fingers, this my baby.
The clouds are a marriage of dress, of that pallor.

The Bee Meeting (this is one of the poems in her famous “bee sequence” – which she cranked out at 1 or 2 a day, during October of 1962.)

Who are these people at the bridge to meet me? They are the villagers —
The rector, the midwife, the sexton, the agent for bees.
In my sleeveless summery dress I have no protection,
And they are all gloved and covered, why did nobody tell me?
They are smiling and taking out veils tacked to ancient hats.

I am nude as a chicken neck, does nobody love me?
Yes, here is the secretary of bees with her white shop smock,
Buttoning the cuffs at my wrists and the slit from my neck to my knees.
Now I am milkweed silk, the bees will not notice.
They will not smell my fear, my fear, my fear.

Which is the rector now, is it that man in black?
Which is the midwife, is that her blue coat?
Everybody is nodding a square black head, they are knights in visors,
Breastplates of cheesecloth knotted under the armpits.

Their smiles and their voces are changing. I am led through a beanfield.

Strips of tinfoil winking like people,
Feather dusters fanning their hands in a sea of bean flowers,
Creamy bean flowers with black eyes and leaves like bored hearts.
Is it blood clots the tendrils are dragging up that string?
No, no, it is scarlet flowers that will one day be edible.

Now they are giving me a fashionable white straw Italian hat
And a black veil that molds to my face, they are making me one of them.
They are leading me to the shorn grove, the circle of hives.
Is it the hawthorn that smells so sick?
The barren body of hawthon, etherizing its children.

Is it some operation that is taking place?
It is the surgeon my neighbors are waiting for,
This apparition in a green helmet,
Shining gloves and white suit.
Is it the butcher, the grocer, the postman, someone I know?

I cannot run, I am rooted, and the gorse hurts me
With its yellow purses, its spiky armory.
I could not run without having to run forever.
The white hive is snug as a virgin,
Sealing off her brood cells, her honey, and quietly humming.

Smoke rolls and scarves in the grove.
The mind of the hive thinks this is the end of everything.
Here they come, the outriders, on their hysterical elastics.
If I stand very still, they will think I am cow-parsley,
A gullible head untouched by their animosity,

Not even nodding, a personage in a hedgerow.
The villagers open the chambers, they are hunting the queen.
Is she hiding, is she eating honey? She is very clever.
She is old, old, old, she must live another year, and she knows it.
While in their fingerjoint cells the new virgins

Dream of a duel they will win inevitably,
A curtain of wax dividing them from the bride flight,
The upflight of the murderess into a heaven that loves her.
The villagers are moving the virgins, there will be no killing.
The old queen does not show herself, is she so ungrateful?

I am exhausted, I am exhausted —
Pillar of white in a blackout of knives.
I am the magician’s girl who does not flinch.
The villagers are untying their disguises, they are shaking hands.
Whose is that long white box in the grove, what have they accomplished, why am I cold.

Fever 103 (another Oct. 1962 poem)

Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple

Tongues of dull, fat Cerebus
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of licking clean

The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.
The tinder cries.
The indelible smell

Of a snuffed candle!
Love, love, the low smokes roll
From me like Isadora’s scarves, I’m in a fright

One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel.
Such yellow sullen smokes
Make their own element. They will not rise,

But trundle round the globe
Choking the aged and the meek,
The weak

Hothouse baby in its crib,
The ghastly orchid
Hanging its hanging garden in the air,

Devilish leopard!
Radiation turned it white
And killed it in an hour.

Greasing the bodies of adulterers
Like Hiroshima ash and eating in.
The sin. The sin.

Darling, all night
I have been flickering, off, on, off, on.
The sheets grow heavy as a lecher’s kiss.

Three days. Three nights.
Lemon water, chicken
Water, water make me retch.

I am too pure for you or anyone.
Your body
Hurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern —

My head a moon
Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin
Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.

Does not my heat astound you. And my light.
All by myself I am a huge camellia
Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush.

I think I am going up,
I think I may rise —
The beads of hot metal fly, and I, love, I

Am a pure acetylene
Virgin
Attended by roses,

By kisses, by cherubim,
By whatever these pink things mean.
Not you, nor him.

Not him, nor him
(My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats) —
To Paradise.

The Couriers (written in Nov. 1962)

The word of a snail on the plate of a leaf?
It is not mine. Do not accept it.

Acetic acid in a sealed tin?
Do not accept it. It is not genuine.

A ring of gold with the sun in it?
Lies. Lies and a grief.

Frost on a leaf, the immaculate
Cauldron, talking and crackling

All to itself on the top of each
Of nine black Alps.

A disturbance in mirrors,
The sea shattering its grey one –

Love, love, my season.

I think the following poem is the saddest she ever wrote. Now who can ever say what is in the mind of another – and it is always a dangerous thing to read too much into these poems (at least in a biographical way). They are, after all, art. But I believe that one of the reasons she killed herself is to spare her children a mother whose face was “a ceiling without a star”. Not that that excuses her actions. But she wrote this poem in January of 1963, 2 weeks before she put her head in the oven. I find this poem nearly unreadable in its sadness. Yet – wonderful writing as well.

Child

Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new

Whose names you meditate —
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little

Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical

Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes – newlyweds. Happier days. What a gorgeous couple they were.

And this is the last poem that Sylvia Plath completed. It’s chilling, yes, but standing alone – as a poem – I think there’s a lot to talk about here, a lot of stuff – not just biographical.

And I’m sorry – but the line “her blacks crackle and drag” is … I mean, I can’t describe it. It’s just fantastic genius-level imagery, that’s all. Goosebumps. The last two lines give me goosebumps. So scary. “Her blacks crackle and drag.” (And yes … let me just throw a shout-out to Paul Westerberg – who has also recognized the genius imagery in that line.) It’s scary. “Crackle”? “Drag?” All kinds of very frightening images come to mind in those two simple words … and the internal rhyme of “blacks” and “crackle” make it seem even more eerie. I’m not a literary critic but I will NEVER be done reading this last poem. She completed it on February 4, 1963. She killed herself on February 11.

Edge

The woman is perfected.
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity
Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare
Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.
Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little
Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded
Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden
Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.
The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.

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20 Responses to “The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God.” It’s Sylvia Plath’s Birthday

  1. Eric the...bald says:

    I recognize the greatness there, but it hurts to read it and I don’t feel strong enough to withstand it. It makes me feel like I’m leaning over the edge of a well, looking down into the darkness.

  2. red says:

    Eric –

    truer words were never spoken. I completely know what you mean.

  3. amelie / rae says:

    a year ago today, i celebrated sylvia’s birthday, so to speak, in a way not unsimilar to this post. and i received a lot of criticism for it, because “she wasn’t that great” and “she committed suicide. should i be worried about you?” and likeminded drivel. so i’m glad to see you celebrating, also, such that i can share in the celebration again, and not experience said drivel from you. ^_^ [long, roundabout way of saying thanks for the post, i know, but thanks.]

  4. red says:

    I experience that kind of thing a lot too, amelie.

    I’ve been a Plath fan since I was 15 years old – and I certainly can see she’s not for everybody – but my fascination with her has lasted … uhm … decades now. I think, in some ways, it’s a shame that her biographical details overshadow the power of who she actually was as a poet.

  5. amelie / rae says:

    amen.

    and i must say, i love all the obsessions — big and small — and fascinations that you put up here. just love it. ^_^

  6. Bridget says:

    I just happened across your blog as I subscribe to Google Alerts for Sylvia Plath, and a link to your blog came up today. I loved reading your post; it’s obvious I have a kindred spirit in you, in that you seem as intrigued and interested and obsessed (?) as I am in Plath, her biography, and her poetry.

    There are some things you opined in on that I don’t agree with (you mention that her mother didn’t love her, while I’m of the mind that she did–she just didn’t love her in the way Sylvia wanted and needed (she found that ‘love’ in Dr. Beuscher, she mentions)). You also wrote, “It seems apparent that Sylvia was so terrified of doing BETTER than her husband that … everything shut down.” I’m curious, how did you come to the conclusion that she was terrified of doing better than Ted? I never got the impression that she ever felt she could be better, bigger, greater, than Ted.

    And finally, I don’t know where you live, if you’re even in the States for that matter, but a great thing for you to check out if you ever get the opportunity would be Plath’s archives at the Lily Library at Indiana University, if you haven’t already. I live several hours away and have visited it twice. It’s un-real. To touch the same paper she carefully threaded through a typewriter’s roll, to read the letters to friends and boyfriends and notes to herself that nobody thinks are important enough to publish, and to see her own autograph, Sylvia becomes a tactile, real, person.

    Well, I’m just happy to have come across your blog on this rainy, blowy day.

  7. red says:

    Bridget – wow, what an awesome comment!! Thank you so much! You know, I have never been to the Lily library – but I have always wanted to check it out. It must be amazing – it’s a trip I will definitely make someday.

    And about doing better than Ted: i’m just guessing, of course – but here’s why I said that:

    When his book gets accepted for publication – I can’t remember which one it was, but it was his first book – Sylvia raves excitedly in her journal, “I am so glad Ted is first! So glad!” There was more to that entry – but what I got from that was an essential anxiety about moving “ahead” of Ted. Ted needed to be “first” – because he was the man – and if she moved ahead, then the balance of power would be out of whack.

    And then also – her writer’s block. She clammed up when they got together. I think she also clammed up when they moved to the Boston area – because she was back in the realm of her mother.

    Maybe she never did think she could be better than him – I know she was kind of in awe of him, and also – in how easily it seemed that he could sit down to work. He had a great work ethic – and she felt really – out of it, sometimes. Like: why can’t I work like HE does??

    And seriously – the fact that you mention Dr. Beuscher in your comment, and that I totally know who you are talking about – tells me we are kindred spirits. :)

    Again, thank you for the terrific comment. Really interesting stuff.

  8. Bridget says:

    Haha, I laughed, because you make a good point… I guess the reference to Dr. Beuscher would float over most people’s heads, although it’s such a common name in my head that I don’t even realize that. I was hoping that you wouldn’t take my differning opinions as criticism, I wasn’t sure how those thoughts came off in my comment, but I’m glad to see you recognized them just as what they were: just a li’l ol’ girl’s bitty ideas on a really.great.poet.

    I read a ton by Plath, have for the past five years. For a while, and I’ve never told anybody this, but for a while I read her Journals every night before bed. I’m talking, for two years maybe. Just a couple days’ worth every night before sleep. Which, I suppose is why the name of the psychologist of a woman who died 50 years ago is second-nature to me, like that of an old friend. I was really much more interested in her Journals than her poetry, although over the past two or three years her poetry has balanced itself in its interest to me with her Journals.

    Anyways, what I’m rambling about and want to say is that it’s nice to have found your little spot on the web. I’m running out the door now so have to end this comment now…

  9. red says:

    The journals truly are amazing. I still wish the last 2 years worth would “show up” somewhere – I wonder if they ever will.

  10. red says:

    Oh, and actually – I know you’re right about Aurelia. You are definitely right. But there’s something about that woman that just gives me the creeps. Especially her publishing all of her daughter’s letters. Just doesn’t sit well with me.

    Who am I to judge and all that, but I guess I judge. ha.

    Interesting part in the journal – you probably remember better than I do!! – when she’s gone into analysis with Beuscher – and she writes to herself something like, “Hold yourself back from showing every new poem to Mother.”

    Does that sound familair? And she talks a lot about how she would offer up her poems to her mother – almost for approval – it was such a symbiotic thing – almost like her mother owned her talent?? Or something?

    So Sylvia began to learn that her poetry was something that was HERS … and she needed to shield herself from her mother, as best she could.

    If I’m remembering that whole section correctly. It was from when she and Ted were both teaching in Boston.

  11. RTG says:

    These are the first Plath poems I’ve read. I’ve avoided her – I don’t really know why. In high school, I remember hearing about another class reading The Bell Jar. Jokes of putting one’s head in the oven followed. I felt protective of her, even though I knew not one single thing about her. I kept thinking: I could put my head in the oven. The kids who were reading her never could, and I guess I just didn’t want to get that close to part of myself. I didn’t want that kind of confrontation.

    So I’ve read her poems here. They are rich but fragile and I love them. I’m only sorry it has taken me so many years to be ready for them.

  12. Rhea says:

    I was a big fan of Sylvia Plath’s back when I was younger. I found a few years ago that she was born right here in my neighborhood of Boston, in fact, just about 3-4 blocks from where I sit typing this note!

  13. Aaron says:

    I’ve only been a Plath fan for two years since I read The Bell Jar before anything else and was moved to read more but felt disappointed I could find no more novels. I cautiously sampled her poetry and especially fell in love with her voice when I found a cassette of her reading some of her own poetry. Anyway, I observed her birthday yesterday by listening to that tape, and this afternoon I was pleased to find your post about her when I wondered if anyone else still remembered her (I was crushed when I first started reading her work and shared this with a friend, only to hear the response, “Wasn’t she the one put her head in the oven?”). And Friday night I shared a few beers with my typewriter repair guy after helping out in the shop, and I talked about reading Sylvia’s journals over the past two years and buying a hardcover 1st edition of Johnny Panic & The Bible of Dreams in a used bookstore around her birthday last year (I felt so convinced when I saw that book on the shelf that it was there for me that I waited a week before I went back to pay for it–now I have a softcover copy as well for casual reading), and although my typewriter friend had never read any of her work (although his mother was a serious fan) he knew which typewriter she had used (he mentioned a Royal, but I don’t remember which model, etc.), and he’s going to give the tape I left for him a listen.

    Anyway, I appreciate your tribute, and I’m printing a copy so I can read through it again with more care.

    -Aaron

  14. red says:

    Aaron – wow, I just love that typewriter guy knew what kind of typewriter she used. That’s strangely moving to me. ???

    Beautiful comment – thanks!

  15. Catez says:

    Wow – possibly the longest blog post I’ve ever read. Or maybe I just never finished one this long – it is interesting.

    Have read Plath on and off for years – as in the last 27 years. But don’t know as much as you.

    Friend of mine told me once that Plath made her angry. “Why” said me naively. The suicide and the kids. And the burnout of such a gift for startling imagery and not a word in excess.

    We listened to an album from the Brit indie scene, can’t remember the name, but this guy read her black shoe poem – you will not do, you will not do. And then we had this heavy discusion about her father. Puffing off to Dachau – the cold rage in that.

    I found your blog recently following a Leslie van Houten search result. I always thought Plath had something mising too – the rage had overwhelmed something in her. But not like Van Houten – who had no artistry or rhythm and just spewed it out on others. I guess I just sense two sides of the same kind of blackness in a way.

    While I’m free associating, (haven’t had this much fun on some-one’s blog for a while) – flag living in the Bone People tower. Get yourself further up the New Zealand West Coast – try Muriwai or Karekare. Black sand dunes, rolling surf, and up on the cliff top you can look out over the circle of the earth. I’ve done it many times, since I live here. Walked along the beach in the winter unable to stand straight in the wind, with the black sand whipping my face. Keri Hulme – we debated that book. I didn’t like it and struggled to finish it. But it’s very her – very much her isolation and view.

    If you don’t mind all that. Thanks for the awesome post, and the photos.

  16. Bridget says:

    Just had to pipe in here… Red & Aaron, I know there’s a webpage floating around here on the internet with a photograph of Plath’s typewriter. I have it bookmarked on my laptop but, alas, that piece of junk is broken and I’m using a desktop now. I thought it was on Smith’s website, since they have her actual typewriter there, but I looked around on their site and couldn’t find the photo. I remember reading on the blurb next to the photo of the typewriter that Smith students are actually able to type on it! Ah, sacrilege! = )

  17. Bridget says:

    Oh, and Aaron, are you single?? You sound like my type of guy!! = )

  18. Aaron says:

    Sylvia’s typewriter is at Smith College? I read something about how she wrote on rose-colored paper which was Smith stationary (was that on this site–now I don’t remember). Anyway, I’m planning to go by the typewriter shop today and will check to see if my contact has any relevant pictures (he has a small collection of authors with their machines, etc.).

    And, Bridget, as romantic as it might sound, a young guy with an entire room full of old typewriters is not really so exciting. I do enjoy typing my correspondence, however, and I’m always looking for new pen pals. In the meantime my heart is devoted to Charlotte Bronte–I just finished Jane Eyre for the first time (I had read Maureen Corrigan’s book about her favorite reads and realized I missed a lot of great novels which were for “girls” when I was busy reading manly writers like Hemingway, etc.).

    -Aaron

  19. Bridget says:

    Red,

    That does sound familiar, that idea to “Hold yourself back from showing every poem to mother” bit you put out there. I think you’re right that she needed to take her writing–and the products it created–back from her mom… I know she also said the same thing about her fears, worries and concerns when she was teaching at Boston, and keeping those from Ted. I think her reasoning was, what good does it do to tell Ted about my worries? It just upsets him, which in turn upsets Sylvia again even more, etc.

    I think you’re in line with a lot of people when you say that you think her mom was creepy. Myself, not so much… I would rather liked to have had that attention and concern from my own mother; guess it’s a “grass is always greener on the other side” thing, huh? About turning her letters into a book… I know there was some finiancial reason for it, my mind is just a little foggy now about that. But, I was just going over a Plath biography last night, and it mentioned that Plath wanted to collaborate with Eddie (her penpal, ‘member?) in publishing a book of their own correspondence, but he didn’t want to. So, Plath would be guilty of the same sort of sin as her mom if she’d had her way, I guess. Oh, I know what else I was thinking about publishing the letters… I think that was Mrs. Plath’s way of showing the world that Plath wasn’t some crazy, suicidal, depressed demon like Hughes’ version of “Ariel” would have her be. She wanted to prove that Plath was a nice girl who just got into a bad situation, etc. That, in itself, I guess is kinda icky and bizaare now I think about it.

    And Aaron, a room full of typewriters is better than a room full of a couple other things I can think of!

    -Bridget

  20. Aaron says:

    I have a copy of a book of Sylvia’s letters to her mother, but I have only read a sampling, but one day I will, just as soon as I finish the Diane Middlebrook bio, HER HUSBAND, I picked up the other month. I had seen her mother interviewed for a documentary, and I imagined how Sylvia would have aged had she lived into my own lifetime–but her mother’s voice had the same quality of tone when speaking, very serious (although I wonder what Sylvia’s laugh would have sounded like–I know there are more recordings out there, including some interviews she did with Ted on BBC radio, but I’m not sure where to find them–interlibrary loans, here I come). I was struck, when I first saw some pictures in a bio, that Sylvia didn’t look anything like I had imagined when I was reading her novel and some poems. I could go on about this, but it’s not important.

    I took off the latter half of the day from work and stopped by the typewriter shop–my guy said she used a Royal Quiet De Luxe and he had one of the same model in the shop but in a different color. Anyway, I just found, by Google, that picture of Sylvia’s machine at Smith… and I recognize it as the same model I have myself, green plastic keys and wrist tab, etc! It’s not a KMG, a bit later than that–but, anyway, here’s the link:

    http://www.sylviaplath.info/gallery/plathsroyal.jpg

    In the pictures I’ve seen of her typing the profile seems to be of a smaller, portable machine, but I’ve only been obsessed with typers for a little more than a year now and still lack a cetain expertise.

    Hey, I heard that Sylvia was reading, in the last years of her life, some novels by Doris Lessing and was thinking of using one of those for a model to write a second novel. It’s pure speculation, but I’ve picked up some Doris Lessing for an idea (Golden Notebook was published just before Sylvia’s death); I fear I may be on the road to reading Plath the way I read everything by and about Kafka (the first literary love of my life) some 10 years ago….

    But I just printed out the “Books, Books, Books” category of the archives from the Sheila Variations (I read these things easier on paper), all 182 pages! Just from glancing through I’m sure to pick up some titles to look for: I should pay more attention to blogs for future reading suggestions.

    -Aaron

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