by Sylvia Plath
The day itself was a revelation. Seven hundred students came from all over New York state, I spent the morning reading about 20 stories and 20 poems for the two contests I was judging, and out of the general collection of vague echoes and lilied spiritualism, was excited to find two excellent poems and several original stories, and learned a great deal in my reading and analyzing the subjects and form. No names were on the entries, only numbers, so I didn’t know till the end of the day that my choice for 1st in poetry went to my favorite boy, Wallace Klitgaard,* son of a now-dead Danish author,* with a famous artist for a mother.*
I also had two hours, one in the morning, one after lunch, of poetry roundtable, armchair reading of verse, and discussion. I was amazed at an enthusiastic audience of about 30 both times, very responsive, and I was really elated at my articulation and ability to manage group discussion, use my sense of humor, and draw together a varied group (including Catholic girls and a couple of nuns, one or two young and delightful agnostics, several high school teachers and principals,) and share the desk with a bohemian poetess from Woodstock named Dachine Rainer,* whose husband had a D. H. Lawrence beard and whose daughter, a pigtailed pixie, could quote ee cummings. They asked me to read aloud my own poetry, and discussed it, and also two of the student poems. I was so stimulated by the groups, and several came up afterward, including a dear little man teacher from Middletown, to say how they enjoyed the discussion. I was really amazed by my diplomacy, my sudden ability to remember quotes to illustrate points, and to smooth differences into an acceptance of paradox. We had excellent discussions, and I realized that a moderator can guide a class to make conclusions and draw the whole thing together. I was happiest to see how they responded to challenge, humor, and figured that I would really like teaching after this session which elated me no end.
Met several publishers, artists, etc. either from NYC or Woodstock, also Mickey Spillane, a friend of Bob Thornell’s, up from Florida, looking like a dear, tan innocent kid rather than the author of countless best-seller murder mysteries. Bob drove me back to Albany, very happy, and we really shared the joys of the whole day together. I have a standing invitation to visit some day, too.
By for now, your own,
Sivvy
TO Joyce Horner
Friday 6 May 1955
TLS with envelope,
Mount Holyoke College
Lawrence House
May 6, 1955
Dear Miss Horner---
I was really delighted to hear the outcome of the contest and very happy to share the prize with William Whitman. Needless to say, my most treasured possession is the dear note from John Ciardi which I appreciate from the bottom of my heart. I enjoyed his company so much at the festival and can’t tell you how much his specific suggestions and comments pleased me!
Also, it was exciting to receive the beautiful glossy print* of my talk with Marianne Moore from the News Office. Please thank Elizabeth Green* for me when you next happen to see her for her kind letter* and forwarding the Monitor article and the photograph. I really appreciated her thoughtfulness.
Once again, let me tell you what a rich experience the Holyoke festival was for me. So often at a forum affair there is really no chance for serious discussion with the main speakers, but only exchange of pleasantries over coffee, for the celebrities must be shared with everyone. However, I felt that I had a really provocative conversation with all three judges in the course of two days, and that the party, the dinner and luncheon, were all delightful opportunities to get acquainted with these three stimulating people. I also enjoyed the other contestants, and felt privileged to hear their work.
No news from the Fulbright committee yet, so I shall review for comprehensives and try to curb my eagerness to hear whether I’ll be assigned to Oxford or Cambridge should I get a fellowship.
Thank you again for one of the most meaningful experiences I’ve every had.
Sincerely,
Sylvia Plath
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Saturday 21 May 1955
Telegram, Indiana University
MORE GOOD NEWS ATLANTIC MONTHLY JUST BOUGHT ORIGINAL THREE RING CIRCUS FOR AUGUST ISSUE LOVE
=SYLVIA
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Saturday 21 May 1955*
ALS with envelope,
Indiana University
Saturday afternoon
2 p.m.
dearest of mothers . . .
I am up here on the sunroof in halter and shorts basking in the pure blue air under a tall waving tree of white dogwood and green leaves while the leaves of the beech tree are coppery dark red. You have no idea how wonderful & reassuring it was to talk to you yesterday! That, plus the Fulbright, has made me able to face exams with equanimity. and now:
MORE GOOD NEWS! (if that seems possible!) I just got a wonderful letter from Editor Weeks* of the Atlantic Monthly after my first exam of 3 (4 hours long) this morning.
He said they all agreed with me that my original poem “Circus in Three Rings” was better than the revision they asked for & so it will definitely appear in the August issue of the Atlantic* as you read it & liked it – What good fortune for the title of my embryonic book!
Best of all, he said they were “charmed” by my long 3-page poem “The Princess & the Goblins” (whose length deterred them at this time) and asked me to send it back with some new work this summer! Such bliss! That fortress of Bostonian conservative respectability has been “charmed” by your tight-rope walking daughter! Do tell Mr. Crockett & Mrs. Prouty about this & the Fulbright – I will try to write Prouty, but wrote 10 letters of thanks & information of Fulbright to professors & Dr. Beuscher yesterday, & so don’t know if I’ll have time before I get home Wednesday – I am so happy, so encouraged – talked to Clem over the phone yesterday & hope to visit his mother some time this summer early for advice about plotting – I’d love to get that “indefinable Journal” quality!
Now, just so you can remember it all, I’ll give you a list of prizes & writing awards got this year:
$ 30. Dylan Thomas honorable men. for “Parallax”, Mlle.
30. For cover of Novel Symposium Mlle
5. Alum Quarterly article on Alfred Kazin
100. Acad. Of Am. Poets prize (10 poems)*
50. Glascock Prize (tie)
40. Ethel Olin Corbin Prize (sonnet)
50. Marjorie Hope Nicholson prize (tie) for thesis
25. Vogue Prix de Paris (1 of 12 winners)
100. Christophers (1 of 34 winners)
25. Atlantic for “Circus in 3 Rings”
15. Mlle for “Two Lovers & a Beachcomber by Real Sea”
$465. Total, plus much joy!
Now can pay all debts & work towards coats & luggage – get well fast – can’t wait to see you Wednesday –
all my love –
sivvy
More good news!
TO Lynne Lawner
Sunday 22 May 1955*
Printed from Antaeus 28,
Winter 1978
Sunday afternoon
May 22, 1955
Dear Lynne,
A belated note out of the holocaust of our final comprehensive exams to say how happy I was to get your letter. I, too, enjoyed staying with you so very much at Holyoke and among other things, was most surprised that you were (am I right?) a sophomore. You seem so much more mature than that in every way . . . If you could see the poetry I wrote two years ago, you would no doubt laugh . . . it was so uneven and unfinished. Like piano, practice can do wonders . . .
I want to congratulate you, too, for being one of the 50 runners-up in the Mademoiselle College Board contest. That is a marvelous coup for you. The girl in my house at Smith who is among the winners, Jane Truslow, tried out for four years before she got it, and I am confident that if you try out again you will make it. They really rate seniority and perseverance, and if you are being runner-up at this stage, you have
a tremendous chance in your next year!
Must return to Chaucer and the Canterbury pilgrims now. Meanwhile, best of luck and have a fun summer. Oh, I must tell you . . . the Fulbright to Cambridge University came yesterday, and I’m walking on air, although I shall probably flunk my comps as a result of such feather-headedness. I sail for London on the Queen Elizabeth in September, which, even as I say it, I can hardly believe.
Bye for now,
Sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 30 May 1955*
ALS (picture postcard),
Indiana University
THREE CROWNS RESTAURANT. Revolving Smorgasbord of world’s fair fame. 12 East 54th Street, New York, N.Y. Native Swedish Cuisine – Cocktail Lounge.
Memorial Day
Dearest mother –
I am having the loveliest time – just finished my first smorgasbord – saw “Wuthering Heights”* last night (Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff, Merle Oberon as Kathy – remember?) and wept buckets & couldn’t stop. Also saw “Desperate Hours”* a magnificent melodrama – and the movie “La Ronde”* – can’t wait to see you – only a week from today – get well fast
xxx
sivvy
TO Gordon Lameyer
c. Sunday 5 June 1955*
ALS in greeting card,*
Indiana University
I want a greeting that will reek / Of chic / It can be gay / But not mad / Naughty but not / Bad / Perhaps just a little risque / As long as it will say / HAPPY BIRTHDAY
love, / sylvia
PS: “Circus in 3 Rings” comes out in August Atlantic! Had a lovely time with your mother at the Smith Club dinner last week* – Fulbright now in pocket & I sail for the big green gem in silver sea on Sept. 14 – will be home writing & taking care of mother all summer.
s. p.
TO Lynne Lawner
Wednesday 8 June 1955
Printed from Antaeus 28,
Winter 1978
Wednesday, June 8, 1955
Dear Lynne . . .
it was delightful to get your champagne-spontaneous letter when I arrived home from the rather unbelievable business of becoming a smith alumna. adlai stevenson, operating on the hypothesis that every woman’s highest vocation is a creative marriage, was most witty and magnificent as commencement speaker. miraculously, monday was blue and sunny, sandwiched like caviar between cold slabs of rainy june weather. in the hectic flight of a week in nyc, I managed to lose my voice completely between grand central and hamp, and am just recovering it in a slightly frogish state today, along with my equilibrium . . . .
your life sounds most exhilarating . . . the new bucolic man and the impressive scholastic papers especially. I wish no end that I could take you up on the cape project, but my summer plans have been changed rather drastically because of my mother, who has been in the hospital and will be operated on next week because of a drastic ulcer condition. I shall be writing in the backyard at my wellesley cottage, reading, tanning, and playing florence nightingale for the summer, plus cook and general mistress of the place.
no trips, then, for me. in a way, it’s a good thing, as I’ve had enough traveling these past months to make me retch at the sight of a suitcase, and so am saving my wanderlust for next september when I go all-royale and board the queen elizabeth.
fortunately, a very nice assistant editor from harcourt, brace, is conveniently changing his job this month to assistant to director of harvard u. press, and with his coming cambridge locale, I hope to see a bit of him. I love cambridge enormously, and would love to end up with a professor there. I’ll see if I can win any converts in england.
you’re so lucky to be coming to the harvard prom . . . I was planning to be at yale’s prom this weekend, but a childhood friend suddenly got sentimental and enlisted me as the honorable maid at her wedding this saturday, so I must, alas, forgo my french sassoon and be attendant.
new york was magnificent: saw “desperate hours” and countless excellent movies, among them, “la ronde” and “wuthering heights” . . . also whirled on central park carousel, lunched with cyrilly abels of mlle, and haunted museum of modern art . . . .
I know you’ll be preoccupied when you return here, but I’ll be home, and would love to have you drop by for a visit anytime. I’m only 10 minutes from the college, right off weston road, on the right, two streets away under the route 9 bridge, very simple, and anyway, do call if you get a second (We5-0219j).
meanwhile, my faith and best wishes for a tremendous career, writing and living, and
love,
sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Friday 24 June 1955*
AL, Indiana University
WELCOME HOME !!!!!!
hjhjhjhjhh ghghghghghfhfhfh
TO Harrison Eudy*
Tuesday 28 June 1955
TLS (typed copy),
Academy of American Poets
26 Elmwood Rd.
Wellesley, Mass.
June 28, 1955
Mr. Harrison Eudy
4614 Prospect Ave.
Cleveland, Ohio
Dear Mr. Eudy:
I was both pleased and honored recently to have a group of my poems awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize at Smith College. Mrs. Hugh Bullock,* President of the Academy, informed me in her letter* that the prize was made possible through a generous bequest of your mother, Mrs. Mary Cummings Eudy,* and that the two exquisite black-and-silver poetry books by Mrs. Eudy were a gift from you, in your mother’s memory.
I felt, after reading the beautiful, diamond-cut poems in “Quarried Crystals”* and “Quicken the Current”,* that I wanted to write you and tell you what a privilege it is and always will be to partake of your mother’s vital, radiant spirit, crystalized here in living words. To use her own words, “The spreading shaft of a phrase, / Like radium, / Illumines the unseen realm.”* This expresses my feeling towards these two brilliant books of poetry. Thank you for letting me share them.
As a scholarship student at Smith College, just freshly graduated this June, this prize was a most encouraging part of my “commencement”. Almost as if it were a talisman, I had three poems accepted by The Atlantic, Mademoiselle, and The Nation. After this fruitful year, I know that writing poetry will always be the richest, most rewarding part of a full maturing life. Next fall, as I embark on a Fullbright grant, to study English literature at Cambridge University, these two fine volumes of Mrs. Eudy’s poetry shall accompany me as guide and inspiration.
With deepest gratitude for your thoughtfulness and generosity, I am
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Sylvia Plath
TO Edward Weeks
Wednesday 6 July 1955
TLS (photocopy), Yale University
26 Elmwood Road
Wellesley, Massachusetts
July 6, 1955
Editor Edward Weeks
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
8 Arlington Street
Boston 16, Massachusetts
Dear Editor Weeks:
I was delighted to read of your decision to publish my first version of “Circus in Three Rings” in the August Atlantic.
As you requested in your letter, I am sending back to you “The Princess and the Goblins” with a selection of some new (and shorter) poems.*
I’m looking most forward to seeing the August issue!
Sincerely yours,<
br />
Sylvia Plath
TO Warren Plath
Wednesday 6 July 1955
TLS (photocopy), Indiana
University
Wednesday, July 6
Dear Warren . . .
I am sitting up in my room in halter and shorts trying to beat the heat with iced coffee, but it simply refuses to be beaten, and the ice persists in melting. Around me are the “hewn coils of my trade”:* mountains of rejection slips, poems addressed to be sent out again, and countless copies of the SatEvePost (as the Writer’s mags insolently abbreviate it) which I took out from the library to saturate myself in the “indefinable something” which makes a $1000 story. One acceptance since you left: The Nation,* that political news-sheet, to my surprise, bought an ominous little 24-line lyric called “Temper of Time.” First acceptance from them, so it salves the wounds of the other snotty rejections. Poems are hell to sell. Be sure to buy the August Atlantic and Mlle if you have money to burn. Hope to be in both.