Your Own, Sylvia

by Stephanie Hemphill

  Dear Reader,

  It's hard to explain exactly why I love Sylvia Plath. I know that I felt sparks, almost like a jolt of static electricity, when my best friend first read me Sylvia's poem “Edge.” At fifteen I had this dark, fierce place inside me that no one quite understood and that I myself couldn't articulate. I found my way to Ariel, and in those pages it seemed as if Sylvia read my mind, wrote from the black cavern of my heart. Her words were more than real. They were fearless. A revelation.

  As I researched Sylvia's work for this book, not only did I gain further admiration for her gifts of language and rhythm, her unique blend of autobiography and fiction, but also I found that again I related to her in an almost eerie way. Both of us were writers, both of us struggled with how to balance our art with our lives.

  Another thing I came to understand was just how deep and widespread the kinship with Sylvia's life and writing has become. There is something about her raw honesty that makes you feel like you know her, understand her, are understood by her. Her words laser through boundaries of culture, age, and gender, to speak to our universal psyche. This unique bonding between Sylvia and her readers is one of the reasons why Your Own, Sylvia was chosen as the book's title.

  My method for developing the book was to begin each day by taking a line from a Plath poem and journaling in poetry—writing out my thoughts and feelings starting with one of her images or ideas. I also sent my mother daily letters, as Sylvia often did. I wrote about my writing and my life. I tried to channel Sylvia, as well as the younger me reacting to Plath for the first time. Re-experiencing the tragedies and triumphs of her life and her art, I fell in love all over again. And then I began writing the poems for this novel.

  This book, although based on real events and real people, is first and foremost a work of fiction. I have taken liberties imagining conversations and descriptions and interpreting the feelings of the real people speaking in these poems. My intention is to illuminate Sylvia Plath's life and work and to introduce newcomers to this astonishing poet and woman. I tried to do this with as much authenticity as possible and hope the results reflect this intention.

  As to purpose, Sylvia questions it herself in her poem “The Night Dances.” She wonders why she has been given:

  These lamps, these planets

  Falling like blessings, like flakes

  For me the answer is clear: Sylvia was given the night sky's brilliance so her writing can be a light for all of us. Please go find her. Her writing is a gift—The Bell Jar, Ariel, The Colossus, The Collected Poems, her letters and journals. On these amazing pages you just might discover yourself.

  Source Notes and Bibliography

  Piecing together the life of Sylvia Plath was a daunting task. Sylvia is an artist I hold in high esteem and with whom I feel an affinity. Her life and work have fascinated many writers before me, and several conflicting accounts of her life exist. We know too that a portion of her work and some of the information about her life has been suppressed or destroyed, or, due to legal restrictions, may not be available for another decade or more. For these reasons it seemed best to convey my interpretation of Sylvia's story through the voices of the people who knew and experienced her and through the words and literature she left behind.

  To acquire information for these perspectives, my research for this book was two-pronged. I read all of Sylvia's poetry and fiction, and as many of her journals and letters as I was able to get my hands on. I then relied on biographers and their interviews with the people who knew Sylvia to fill in the details of her life. The different voices of this book come primarily from three biographies: Edward Butscher's Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness, Anne Stevenson's Bitter Fame, and most significantly, Paul Alexander's Rough Magic.

  The sociopolitical stance of the author or scholar at the time different biographies or articles were written on Plath often dictated the hue of the presentation of Sylvia's life. Sylvia has been taken up by feminists and formalists, by psychologists and journalists. She has been called a victim, a lunatic, a genius—in various combinations. I read biographies and articles on Plath written in different decades by scholars, friends, family members, and colleagues in order to have a more complete picture of Sylvia's importance and influence, and how she has been characterized and remembered, in the forty-plus years since her death.

  When Sylvia died, her estate, including all of her fiction, articles, and journals, became the property of Ted Hughes. Ted assigned Olwyn, his sister, to be the executor of the Plath collections. Because the Hugheses refused interviews, denied would-be biographers access to essential documents, and turned down requests to quote Sylvia's work, it was nearly impossible to publish well-informed biographies on Plath.

  I found it essential to read Edward Butscher's biography, Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness (1976), the first biography to be published about Plath. It takes a psychoanalytic look at Sylvia's life and work. When Edward Butscher published Method and Madness, neither Plath's letters nor her journals had been published, nor had any of her fiction except for The Bell Jar. The Hugheses did not endorse this book and opposed its publication. I used several voices and anecdotes from interviews Butscher conducted for my poems in Your Own, Sylvia.

  Designed in many ways to counterbalance what, by 1989, the Plath Estate saw as Plath's mistaken posthumous reputation as a feminist martyr, Anne Stevenson's Bitter Fame presents a unique view of Sylvia. Anne Stevenson began her research in 1985, after The Collected Poems and an abridged version of Sylvia's journals were made available. Anne Stevenson actually worked in conjunction with, and with the approval of, Olwyn and Ted. Because of this, Bitter Fame is well documented and offers many details about Sylvia's life. It provided texture and context for Your Own, Sylvia, but I did not use it as my primary source.

  Paul Alexander's Rough Magic guided the structure of Your Own, Sylvia by most often helping me to select which voice seemed most apt to tell Sylvia's story at different moments in her life. Written in 1991, this biography is not the most recent book on Plath, but it remains one of the most respected and comprehensive. Alexander interviewed everyone he could who knew Plath, some of whom are no longer with us. For me the Alexander biography, although clearly sympathetic to Sylvia, seems less biased than Method and Madness and Bitter Fame. Also, at the time it was written, Alexander had more uncensored information available to him than did Stevenson or Butscher.

  Taken altogether, those three biographies provided me with a base of understanding of the emotional inner workings of Sylvia and the people who knew her. The other sources I have cataloged offered further and often more specific details about Sylvia's life. For instance,Elaine Feinstein's Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet explores Sylvia's relationship with Ted from a different perspective, as does Ted's own Birthday Letters. “Sylvia and Ruth,” a Salon.com article by Karen Maroda, illuminates components of Sylvia's relationship with Dr. Ruth Barnhouse, her therapistJillian Becker's Giving Up provides a uniquely personal description of the last few days Sylvia was alive.

  if biographies provided the skeleton voices for the verse portrait of Plath, this book's “Imagining Sylvia” poems were written under the guidance of Sylvia's own poetry. These poems correspond to poems Sylvia wrote, so the date indicated on each of my new poems corresponds very nearly, if not exactly, to the date when the original Plath poem was written (with a few exceptions). I adopted the style of the original Plath poem, maintained the topic of the original, and incorporated Sylvia's imagery into the new poems wherever possible.

  Along with her poetry and prose, Sylvia's journals and letters allowed me to access her thoughts and feelings. Many biographers do not have autobiographical records of their subjects, and I am so grateful to have these passages from inside Sylvia's amazing, prolific mind. I owe anything that is good about the “Imagining Sylvia” poems directly to Sylvia herself.

  This verse portrait is intended to be a stepping stone to encourage everyone to read or reread Sylvia Plath's work. The best way
to understand this mysterious, captivating artist and woman is to read what she left behind. I hope this book leads you there.

  More detailed source notes and a bibliography for further reading follow.

  Source Notes

  “Dearest, Darling, First Born”—Information about Aurelia is from Paul Alexander's Rough Magic.

  “Bee-Keeper, Penny-Pincher, Professor, Master of the House”— The analysis of the relationship between Sylvia and her father is Butscher's. Sylvia writes about visiting her father's grave in her journal dated Monday, March 9,1959.

  “The Day She Learned to Swim” and “Hurricane”—Details about Sylvia's childhood and Marian Freeman's recollections of Sylvia are from Rough Magic.

  “Point Shirley”—Butscher and Alexander detail the Schober's house at Point Shirley.

  “Losing a Limb”—Description and medical records of Otto's illness can be found in Rough Magic and Anne Stevenson's Bitter Fame.

  “Mother's Strength”—The exact time of Otto's death is from Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness. Aurelia's background comes from Bitter Fame.

  “First Publication”—“Poem” and information about it can be found in Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness.

  “Maître d'Hotel”—Stevenson and Butscher provide background details about Frank Schober.

  “Outpatient”—Alexander provides details about Aurelia's illness. In the introduction to Letters Home, Aurelia Plath describes the ways in which she kept her daughter's correspondence.

  “Selfish”—The relationship between Sylvia and Warren is described by Aurelia in the introduction to Letters Home.

  “Best Friend”—Sylvia's childhood with Betsy Powley at Annie F. Warren Grammar School is chronicled in Bitter Fame and in the introduction to Letters Home.

  “Boy Crazy”—Ruth Freeman was interviewed by Paul Alexander, and Sylvia's feelings of awkwardness during adolescence are recounted by Aurelia in the introduction to Letters Home.

  “Crocketteer”—Paul Alexander provides a lot of details about Wilbury Crockett and Sylvia's high school experience.

  “Demolition”—Sylvia writes about her struggles with boys and sexuality in The Journals of Sylvia Plath. Bruce Elwell's experience of Sylvia comes from Rough Magic.

  “A Room of Her Own”—Aurelia details the relationship between Warren and Sylvia in her introduction to Letters Home.

  “Heartbreaker” and “Valedictorian”—Accounts of Sylvia's high school experience come from Paul Alexander's book.

  “Lookout Farm” and “Paper Doll”—Sylvia writes about her experience at Lookout Farm and her relationship with Eddie Cohen in The Journals of Sylvia Plath.

  “Dropout”—Ann Davidow's account comes from Anne Stevenson, and Sylvia writes about Ann in her journals.

  “Patriarchy,” “Tuberculosis,” “Ski Trip,” and “Stalemate”— Descriptions of Sylvia's dating life and relationship with Dick Norton come from Paul Alexander and her journals.

  “Patient”—Anne Stevenson tracks Sylvia's lifelong struggle with sinusitis.

  “Summer Job 1952”—Mr. Driscoll's memories of Sylvia come from Rough Magic.

  “Job Number Two”—Sylvia recounts her experience with the Cantors in her journals, and Paul Alexander adds to the description of this experience in his biography.

  “Proud” and “Aid”—Rough Magic and The Journals of Sylvia Plath paint portraits of Sylvia's lifelong benefactor Olive Higgins Prouty.

  “The Caliber of Her Dating Pool,” “Pretty, Tall, Crippled,” “Golden Girl,” “Marriage,” “Darling, Darling,” and “Farewell Boys”— Alexander tracks Sylvia's dating life at Smith.

  “Pleasure,” “Excellence,” and “Stigmata”—Sylvia describes her experience at Mademoiselle in her journals and letters. Paul Alexander fills in the details of this experience through his interviews. Butscher paints a picture of Cyrilly Abels.

  “Home Bitter Home”—Sylvia's journals describe her return home after her guest editorship.

  “Shock Treatment,” “Doctor-Patient Relations: Trial and Error,” “Doctor's Notes,” and “Debate”—Sylvia's treatment before and after her 1953 suicide attempt and Aurelia's reaction to it come from Paul Alexander.

  “Suicide Watch”—The newspaper accounts of what happened to Sylvia come from Bitter Fame and Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness.

  “Iconic,” “Recommendation,” “Bragging Rights,” and “Put Your Studies to Good Use”—Butscher and Alexander detail Sylvia's Smith years.

  “Abecedarian,” “Debate,” and “Madness”—Wilbury Crockett's aid to Sylvia is described in Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness, as well as some of the treatments employed during her stay at McLean.

  “Blond Ambition” and “Twins”—Nancy Hunter's impressions about Sylvia derive from Paul Alexander's Rough Magic and Ronald Hayman's The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath.

  In large part, Paul Alexander provides the context for Sylvia's Cambridge years and the people she knew while she studied there.

  Butscher, Stevenson, and Alexander provided details about Sylvia and Ted's relationship, as well as most of the sources suggested for further reading.

  “Complaints” and “Their Flat Creaks and Cries, ‘Money, Money’ ”— These accounts come from Anne Stevenson.

  “Professor Plath”—Rosalie Horn was interviewed by Edward Butscher.

  “Robert Lowell's Poetry Class”—Both Butscher and Alexander provide many details about Plath's relationships with Sexton and Lowell.

  “Her Poetry”—Butscher's analysis of “The Fifty-Ninth Bear” is included in the addendum.

  “Poetry First”—Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness and Rough Magic examine the reception of Ted's work.

  “The Birth of Frieda Rebecca” and “Baby Girl”—Alexander describes the birth of Sylvia and Ted's daughter and the practices of English childbirth at the time.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Ted Hughes”—A. Alvarez's first encounter with Sylvia Plath is described in Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness.

  “BBC”—Stevenson and Alexander describe the relationship between Ted and Lucas Meyers and Sylvia and Lucas Meyers. Details about Two of a Kind are also included in the biographies.

  “Woman of the House”—Sylvia Crawford was interviewed by Edward Butscher.

  “Routine”—Much of Aurelia's feelings about Sylvia's life are included in her introduction to Letters Home.

  “Elm”—Ruth Fainlight was interviewed by both Stevenson and Butscher.

  “Sylvia”—The depiction of the relationship between Ted and Assia Wevill comes from Rough Magic.

  “A Letter to the Successful Poet”—Paul Alexander includes in his biography that Ted championed the work of Keith Douglas.

  “New Affiliates”—Sylvia's beekeeping is chronicled in her journals and letters.

  “Shopping in Exeter”—This incident comes from Paul Alexander's biography.

  “Can a Vacation in Ireland Rescue Their Marriage?”—Richard Murphy's role in Sylvia and Ted's life is included in Rough Magic.

  “All the Bitter Things”—Bitter Fame explains the origins of Victoria Lucas.

  Susan O'Neill Roe and Elizabeth Compton are Devon friends of Sylvia's who are included in every biography. Accounts of their experiences with Sylvia come primarily from Paul Alexander's descriptions, but include details from other sources.

  “Divorce”—Susan Macedo's account is from Paul Alexander's Rough Magic.

  “Finally a New Home”—Details about the London flat come from Paul Alexander.

  “At the Zoo”—This visit to the zoo comes from Alexander. Sylvia's feelings about divorce are expressed in a letter to her mother. Details about the precise terms of Ted and Sylvia's separation are described by Butscher.

  “Inconsiderate,” “Victoria Lucas,” “Saturday Night,” and “Sunday Night, Monday Morning”—Trevor Thomas's accounts and background come from Paul Alexander.

  “Apparition at Window”—Valerie St. Johnson's memories of Syl
via are chronicled in Rough Magic.

  “Dysfunction” and “Taxi Driver”—Jillian Becker and her husband's experiences of Sylvia's last days come directly from her book Giving Up: The Last Days of Sylvia Plath.

  “Saturday Night”—Elizabeth Sigmund conveyed her account of events following Sylvia's death in an article in the Guardian dated April 23,1999.

  “Monday Morning”—Paul Alexander includes Myra Norris's descriptions of finding Sylvia's body.

  Your Own, Sylvia Sources and Further Reading

  Aird, Eileen. (1979): ‘Poem for a Birthday’ to ‘Three Women’: Development in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath. Critical Quarterly 21, no. 4 63–72

  Aird, Eileen. 1973. Sylvia Plath. New York: Barnes & Noble Books,

  Alexander, Paul. 1991. Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath. New York: Viking Penguin,

  A. Alvarez, 1972. The Savage God: A Study of Suicide. New York: Random House,

  Annas Pamela. (1980): “The Self in the World: The Social Context of Sylvia Plath's Late Poems.” Women's Studies 7, nos.1–2 171–83.

  Becker Jillian. 2003. Giving Up: The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. New York: St. Martin's Press,

  Butscher, Edward. 1976. Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness. New York: Seabury,

  Drexler, Rosalyn. January 13,1974. “Her Poetry, Not Her Death, Is Her Triumph.” www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/01/home/plath-death.html (accessed September 29, 2005). The New York Times,

  Feinstein, Elaine. 2001. Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson,

  Hayman, Ronald. 1991. The Death and Life of Sylvia Plath. New York: Birch Lane Press,

  Holbrook, David. 1976. Sylvia Plath: Poetry and Existence. London: University of London,

  Hughes Ted. 1998. Birthday Letters. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux,