I did not expect the tributes for Sylvia Plath to start until closer to the anniversary of her death, but the fine poet and writer P. H. Davies has recently published A Life of Plath: both a blog post as well as a selection of poems written about her and inspired by her. It is the first tribute, therefore. And it is also the one by which all the others - that are I am sure forthcoming - will be compared to. My own 11 February post is currently in draft form, but reading Davies' now makes me want to scrap the whole things and start over.
The following news story appeared online this morning: HEPTONSTALL, ENGLAND (APFS) - The small village of Heptonstall is once again in the news because of the grave site of American poet Sylvia Plath. The headstone controversy rose to a fever pitch in 1989 when Plath's grave was left unmarked for a long period of time after vandals repeatedly chiseled her married surname Hughes off the stone marker. Author Nick Hornby commented, "I like Plath, but the controversy reaching its fever pitch in the 80s had nothing to do with my book title choice." Today, however, it was discovered that the grave was defaced but in quite an unlikely fashion. This time, Plath's headstone has had slashed-off her maiden name "Plath," so the stone now reads "Sylvia Hughes." A statement posted on Twitter from @masculinistsfortedhughes (Masculinists for Ted Hughes) has claimed responsibility saying that, "We did this because as Ted Hughes' first wife, Sylvia de