by Sylvia Plath
much love –
your own
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Wednesday 9 January 1957
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Wednesday night
January 9, 1957
Dearest darling mother . . .
It was so wonderful to get your rich, newsy letter yesterday, the same day your cable came. I look so forward to hearing from you, and read the letters aloud to Ted, & over & over to myself, that I am very sensitive to “expecting” them, and couldn’t understand why I hadn’t heard a word for such a long period over a time where it seemed to me you would have much news. I saw from the postmark of your letter---Jan. 1,---that it took the unprecedented time of a week by airmail, where it’s usually only 4 days. Anyway, I was so happy to hear all about your wonderful festivities that I forgot my previous concern.
One thing you didn’t mention, though---the TV program. Did it come off all right? I am also dying with eagerness to get my copy of the Atlantic Monthly. I didn’t know my poem had come out till I got your letter, and after my sharing my wish to get into the Atlantic with Nat LaMar* last year at Cambridge, I am overjoyed to be in the same issue with his story:* the first page of which I read last year in the process---I also saw him the day it was accepted. My 6 poems in Poetry (Chicago) should also come out this month, so look them up. The magazines will undoubtedly be sending me copies regular mail, so don’t you bother. I am so impatient with this overseas mail delay, I’ll be overjoyed to get back home & be in the thick of things again.
As I write, the livingroom is lovely and warm with the coal fire, which I’ve kept going all day. Teddy is sitting nearby reading American history, after a delicious dinner of cheese, tuna and macaroni casserole, red wine, pineapple & heavy cream. It has been a very happy day--Ted got his first acceptance from a British magazine, Nimbus, this morning, of one or two poems*---they haven’t selected the exact titles yet. It has a very impressive format, like the Atlantic, but, the editor says, was on the brink of failing. Naturally we hope & pray it sticks together long enough for Ted’s poems to come out. But the very interested acceptance gave us both a gay mood. We work really hard, and the British magazines have hitherto ignored us both continually. However, the planets point to a magnificently successful year for us both, & we will work to make it come true. Ted has me memorizing a poem a day, which is very good for me,* and we are working out a schedule of going to bed at 10, getting up at 6, and writing two hours steadily before Ted bikes off to work (he started teaching his little thieves again this Monday). This way we accomplish much, and Ted feels his job isn’t taking all his writing time. We are both “early morning” people, & need about the same amount of sleep. Term starts for me next week, so I am cramming reading for it. I didn’t have a chance to write all last term, so am working on two love stories for the women’s magazines: one set, I hope originally, in a laundromat;* the other a college girl story about someone like Nancy Hunter.* I will slave & slave until I break into those slicks. My sense of humor should be good for something. This next week I hope to type the revision of Ted’s childrens fables & the poems I will send off to the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Sue Weller has been in Cambridge a week, just left today, so I have been feeding her cheese omelets, roast beefs, sherry, etc., trying to cheer her up---she is very lugubrious, rather depressive anyway, but especially so about her boyfriend’s being in duty in the navy this year & having to postpome their intended marriage indefinitely. I feel so happy, I was almost feeling guilty talking to her. Ted & I sometimes have violent disagreements, to be sure, but we are so very joyous together & have such identical aims and expectations of our lives, that we never have conflict over any serious issues. I really don’t know how I existed before I met Ted. I can’t imagine spending a day without him---he is so kind and loving and appreciative of my cooking that I delight in trying new things for him. He is also very strictly disciplining about my study and work. It couldn’t be better. I’m so glad you like the art book. What fun we’ll having coming home to our little house & listening to the records & looking at pictures, & cooking delectable meals. Except for a week or two being very social, Ted & I really must hibernate for the rest of the summer, writing furiously & preparing our teaching courses---if we have jobs! Which brings me to another favor to ask you. I have written to Jackson (of Tufts), Brandeis, Smith & Radcliffe for myself; no answers yet, except a letter from this Herschel Baker,* Chairman of the Eng. Dept. at Harvard (I sent the letter to Radcliffe) saying “this department teaches only advanced courses” & so there will be no jobs available for freshman English. Now there must be a freshman English program at Radcliffe (maybe there isn’t, on 2nd thought, but that seems strange). Could you find out if there is, & if so, the name & address of whom I should write to?? Also, see if you can find out about “opinions” of Brandeis & Jackson. Waltham & Medford I suppose would mean commuting, if we lived in Cambridge. Is there anywhere else you’d suggest applying? I will really be glad when we get this settled. Of course we can always be bartender & waitress if worst comes to worst, but I hope it won’t. Hope you can get Ted’s visa duplicate affadavits of support without too much annoyance on your part. Ted joins me in sending much love---to you, Warren & dear Grampy---
love,
Sivvy,
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 14 January 1957
TLS with envelope, Indiana University
Monday noon
January 14, 1957
Dearest mother . . .
It has been so wonderful to get your long, newsy letters---I realize how much I miss being in the center of things at home by the way I eat up every speck of news: if Libby Aldrich tied a red ribbon in her hair, for example, I should be fascinated to hear about it! It sounds so strange to hear you talk about blizzards. Imagine, we haven’t had a flake of snow yet! Just rain and freezing clear blue weather---our worst season of sleet is just coming up---February & howling March. We are buying a paraffin portable heater from the people upstairs when they go this next week for about £4, so at last my deep-freeze of a kitchen should be pleasant---I’ll keep the heater going all day.
Both Ted and I are very excited about the Royal Standard you bought, and overjoyed. We need a heavy big machine so badly---we type all day. Now could you tell me roughly from what price to what price I could ask for my Smith Corona? I thought we’d advertise for it through private sale as we could probably ask much more than to a typewriter-buying firm. Do let me know.
We’ll take the proofs down to have 4 developed this week. I hope you are able to send us all the visa statements without too much trouble and annoyance. It is such a bother, but we have all the other documents here now, and would like to get the mammoth batch off by the end of the month if possible.
I’m enclosing a check for $75 for my six poems in Poetry this month---neither of my magazines have come, and as these are the first poems I’ve had published for over a year and a half, I am very eager to see how they look.
Term begins officially tomorrow, and classes Thursday, so I must cram down a few books before then. Wrote two longer, more ambitious poems of about 50 lines each* this weekend and feel much better having broken my dry spell of this fall term, which was due to my disturbing practical concerns. Now, I am so happy in our cheerful front room & cooking in my little light blue kitchen, I really feel deeply peaceful at the center. Ted is an angel, and understands me so well & is so dear about my writing that I keep pinching myself to be sure it is all true---we have everything---health, books, talent & ambition & love---all but money, and I hope we get a little more of that to make things less hand-to-mouth. I am convinced Ted is the one person in the world I could ever have married; it is simply impossible to describe how strong, and kind of fun-loving and brilliant he is.
Your papering & painting about the house sounds magnificent: I can’t wait to see it all: our house seems the most beautiful palace to me now. I hope, by the way, that
you are still taking me off your income tax---I believe you can do so by simply saying I’m at a university.
Warren wrote the dearest letter---about how he’d been to talk to the head of the Harvard English dept. They seem to run a closed shop, with Phd. candidates teaching sections, but I got a letter suggesting I write to this Prof. Bate* in spring, although they said any vacancies were extremely unlikely. About the Michigan prospect---I simply don’t know how I could stand being away from home and friends again, in that cold climate, too---they say it’s worse than England. Should I bother to write if I really don’t want to go there? One of us should get a teaching job in New England, and the other can always do some different kind of work if absolutely necessary. Cambridge looks like the best center---there are so many colleges around. I probably said before I have applied for myself at Jackson & Brandeis & Radcliffe & Smith---but the last two seem highly dubious: Radcliffe with no openings, & my not really wanting to go back to Smith for my first year until I’ve proved myself elsewhere---the situation would be too emotionally complicated. If Ted got a job at Amherst, I would consider it in a more favorable light, however. I haven’t heard from Mr. Kazin* yet about answering my Xmas note asking for the name & address of the head of the Eng. Dept. to write to Amherst there. Could you find it out for me---? It would no doubt be better & quicker than depending on a busy man like Mr. K. Also, should I write to Tufts & Brandeis for Ted also? Could we commute there from Cambridge? Commuting is the problem---I believe those colleges are in Waltham & Medford respectively. I think of you as in the heart of Boston teaching world & maybe you could help by sending just one or two names of heads of departments of any places I haven’t thought of---Warren said something about the boys’ prep school, Brown & Nichols*---maybe you could write me the name & addresses of whatever boys’ prep schools are in or very near Cambridge.
On second thought, should I apply for the teaching job in Michigan for both of us? Can’t one always refuse? Of course, I don’t know the protocol of accepting & refusing, or deadlines for applying either. Another place that occurred to me is the Univ. of Connecticut---isn’t that better than most state universities. I don’t want to be stuck with mere grammar---I don’t mind themes at all, but a place like Mass. State I’d abhor. Ideally, if we could get a job on the East Coast this coming year, we could apply for jobs at one of the great Californian universities the next year & take a tour of the States in the summer, which I’ve always wanted to do, & with Ted & both of us sharing the new sights it would be marvelous. But I am already so homesick that I don’t know how I could teach so far away from home as the U. of Michigan this year! I want to be able to come home for Thanksgiving, Christmas & Easter. We’ll be travelling around the world enough, later on, hoping after two years of teaching to have a year writing in Italy, if one of us could get a writing grant.
Anyway, let me know any advice or information you manage to unearth. Ted’s teaching experience this year should help him if he applied to a boys’ prep school, & we hope he may get a job teaching two nights a week at an American army base near here---it’s said to be very lucrative. Well, I must be off to shop. My best love to you, and Ted sends his, too.
Love,
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Saturday 19 January 1957
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Saturday afternoon
January 19, 1957
Dearest mother . . .
Your lovely plump pink letter came this morning & I read it aloud to Ted over coffee. We both enjoy every word you write so much. I don’t know how you manage all you are doing---teaching, home-making, studying,---and am so grateful you will take on the additional bother about those verified forms. I took the proofs to be made up last week, but it will probably take 3 weeks to get them sent off. Don’t worry, by the way, about the paraffin heater: we only use it in the kitchen, and it stands in the middle of the stone floor like a little flaming island on the polar cap. Ted supervises our using it, so it’s perfectly safe. I am so glad Ted is such a practical man-about-the-house---much like Frank: he twists a wire here, a knob there, and we have a victrola working, a bed-lamp for reading, like magic.
I really feel much livelier & healthier since I’ve been taking those Supercap pills! We’d welcome more, with the coryza (what are they, by the way?---like anti-histamine? better tell us the directions) because I can “feel a cold coming on” but have nothing to fight it with here. The British “Excellent Remedy For Colds & Influenza” is so much chalk powder: I took them by the dozen & almost perished with mean twitchy sneezes & sleepless days. Ted & I really hope to avoid more colds---they’re so undermining, and now the bad months are coming February & March. You take good care, though. Don’t risk anything of your health, no matter what. And don’t shovel snow. I am aghast at your accounts of the blizzards---we still haven’t had a flake---only blue frosts. I am so glad you’re playing the piano*---it’s such a peaceful, releasing act, isn’t it?
Why don’t you take lessons this summer---just for your own pleasure. There’s such a feeling of accomplishment when one masters a new piece. We’re fascinated to hear about food prices in America---I have absolutely No Idea about living costs. Also, please give me some ideas of your salary, & what salaries for beginning teachers are like. /3 thousand? 7 thousand? What? Our rent for the flat is only $12 a week: what are rates in America? I have a few straw mats in the kitchen which make it bearable to stand on. Ted loves casseroles, so I make them to alternate with our steak and roast beef days: shrimp, peas & rice, or corn, tomatoes & eggs. My Joy of Cooking* is a blessing & so is the oven thermometer, measuring cups, spoons, etc. I use them joyously every day. Chicken is out because it is a luxury here---you should see the scrawny, bony “boiling” chickens that appear in butchers windows---how I miss our lovely delicate toasty golden-brown fryers!
About teaching jobs: I don’t have the Lovejoy catalogue* here with me, so am utterly at a loss for names & addresses of universities. It was such a relief to hear in your letter more names than I’d thought of---but please, do try to look up the Chairman of the English Dept., the college address, for me, & send them off. Do investigate about B.U. (but dont try to use pull), Simmons, Mt. Holyoke, & especially Haverford & Swarthmore---names & addresses of these (I’d forgotten all about Pennsylvania!) I’ll write for both Ted & myself in one letter, for jobs for either or both of us---they may want a man, or they may prefer an American graduate. In any case, if you could look up the address info in the B.U. libe or somewhere, & send them, I’ll get letters off right away. I haven’t heard from Smith, but Mary Ellen Chase had just arrived in Cambridge, so she’ll be able to enlighten me about chances there---actually, I’d much rather avoid the emotional ambivalence about joining the Smith faculty my first year teaching & be at a place where I’m new & in a simple business position. Do let me know the names & addresses of the places I’ve mentioned, & any more you can think of. I’ve already heard negatively from Brandeis & Radcliffe doesn’t hire outside their Phd candidates, although they suggested I write Prof. Bate this spring. What you must understand is that Ted does not want to be a university professor for a career. He wants to write, now & for the rest of his life. And in marrying a writer, I accept his life. For teaching, it is plainly necessary to have a Phd. at university level, unless you’re rare, like Alfred Kazin & have written a mountain of critical work. Ted has no desire to do any more academic work---although he has the most brilliant mind I know, & gave me a rich, vivid picture of literary history from Chaucer’s day to this, he’ll only teach if they’ll take him on his publishing & Cantab. M.A. So the American dream of a secure sinecure writing on campus seems out for our future life. I find it best not to argue---Ted is so understanding about my need to get a self-respecting teaching job in America & “give out” & eager to teach anywhere he can himself for a year or two. He wants to go to Italy for a year then, & teach English in Europe in the language schools. Writing comes first with both of us
, and although Wilbur* & some large amounts of other writers find their plums in the academic world, Ted just doesn’t want to spend years getting necessary degree qualifications when he should be writing hardest. And my faith in him & the way we two want to live understands this. He may change his mind if he likes America enough---but I’ll wait & see. I know Ted’s mind is magnificent, not hair-splitting or suavely politic---but employers may find Phd’s more convincing. Whatever we do we’re together – & that & writing makes our joy. Don’t want to be far off in Michigan – do write Chairmen’s names & univ. addresses.
much love –
Sivvy
PS: Double-bed size sheets; white, aqua & perhaps big white & black diamonded towels like Cantor’s.
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 28 January 1957
TLS
(aerogramme), Indiana University
Monday morning
January 28, 1957
Dearest mother . . .
It is just after 8:30 . . . Ted’s biked off for work, and I am preparing for a day of intense Chaucer reading. At 11 I have coffee with Mary Ellen Chase---the first chance I’ll have had to talk with her since her arrival about two weeks ago, and I hope to get a reliable picture of teaching prospects, at least in New England. From the reception of the few letters I’ve sent off---to Radcliffe, Tufts, & Brandeis, I don’t believe America needs any teachers at all; they all “have no positions” open next year & will keep letters on active file, which no doubt means as penwipers or something equivalent. I am so eager to have you write me the addresses of places like Swarthmore & other places in Pennsylvania & Connecticut---my hands are tied until I get a list from you, and I feel so cut off from everything---unable to arrange interviews, etc. I would rather be an office typist in New England than teach in Michigan. I just want to be in New England for a year---otherwise, we might as well apply for jobs teaching with the Univ. of Maryland program at army bases overseas. Please send me the address of Holyoke, etc. Should I bother applying at Wellesley? They have Wilbur & Philip Booth* as poets already. Ted will have teaching experience & a matured MA from Cambridge, & me only two Ba’s and no teaching experience, and a few scattered published poems, so, brilliant and rare as we are, how can we hope to compete either with the regulation Phd-experienced people or the 10-books-of-poetry-published people??? Heaven knows. Also, when do faculties decide their final lists of teachers? Surely not 8 months ahead? I feel it would be a very great strain for me trying to teach at Smith even if the miracle happened and they wanted to employ me, which they probably wouldn’t consider unless I got a First degree here or something. Well, I’ll talk all that over with Miss Chase. Also, what’s this I hear about “nepotism”---the habit of not employing relatives (eg, husbands & wives) on the same university staff? I don’t know whether I should apply for Ted & me in the same letter or in two separate letters. Please, rush the names of those other colleges in Penn, & Conn. so I can at least feel I’ve written as many places as possible. These jobs refusals plus a pile of rejections (of really fine poems, too) are enough to make me think the teaching profession is run by slick closed-shop businessmen and the literary magazines by jealous scared over-cerebral fashion-conscious idiots. Our problem is that we are primarily writers (and very far from being established or earning) and only secondarily academic (and not desiring the sure fire cure of Phd & postponing life ad infinitum or being “household” poets). It is only too easy for me to convince myself that I haven’t read anything and don’t know anything; I’d like to have at least one year of teaching to get rid of this strange need I have to prove I can support myself by doing something I like, or, relatively, prefer about other jobs. I’m sick, for now, anyway, of living on grants & being a perpetual student. I’ll put in a concentrated effort this spring on stories for the women’s magazines; that would be a break, & I’ve never worked at it---when you think of the years it takes to make a doctor, expecting success posthaste in writing “or I’ll give it up” is ridiculous. Both Ted & I depend on writing & could never give it up, even if we never published another line all our lives. Ted is so magnificent & understanding about my writing & study & needs & I too feel so close to him, it is a blessing. I can’t conceive how I ever lived without him; no wonder I was dissatisfied with men: there isn’t a brain I know that can match his, and all the intelligent or so-called brilliant men from the best east colleges are either narrow old-maids or sick malicious ninnies. Ted has such a huge, uncompromising generosity and large scope & stern discipline it can hardly be contained in the safe narrow molds---marking time at a job so ten years later you’ll be an associate instead of an assistant. And I am so gloriously glad to find a rugged kind magnificent man, who has no scrap of false vanity or tendency to toady to inferior strategic officials that I am only too willing to accept the attendant temporary uncertainties. Only I feel that in America, of all countries, there should be a place for us both. Our rejections make, by contrast, people like Editor Weeks, the editor of Poetry & the Nation,* seem like large worthy guardian angels. Writing is first for us both. I’m typing Ted’s revised fables & my 40 poems these next two weekends, then working on women’s stories & he on a play. Maybe after a year or 2 in America we’ll get a job with the U. of Maryland overseas---we just talked to a couple who’ve been transferred from Germany to England & the schedule is perfect for writing---four 3-hour evening classes a week! Concentrated, but that’s all to the good. What, by the way, are beginning teacher salaries like? 2 thousand? 5 thousand? I have no idea. Your wonderful package of food-mixes arrive this Sat. by the way, & I was happier than with anything so far: within half an hour I have a hot lunch of corn-muffins & pea soup ready, & am dying to try the cake mixes. Ted would be so happy to have a job that’s more than policing & discipline; we’re lucky he has anything, & it will give another vacation, but it does tire him. We love all the things you’ve sent: the roast thermometer does meat perfectly---I’d never know what was “done” in my crazy oven! Had shoulder of lamb yesterday, breaded plaice with mushroom & parsley sauce before. Vitamins are a great help.