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The eve of the Sylvia Plath 75th Symposium

Coming to you live from Oxford, a gray day here, with a chilly raw wind. The schedule for the Sylvia Plath Symposium was updated Monday as I flew to England. The picture to the right is from the Oxford University Press bookshop.

Unfortunately, Diane Middlebrook is a late subtraction to the Sunday schedule.

I was able to buy a copy of Eye rhymes: Sylvia Plath's art of the visual from a bookshop in London. I have not have much time to read it, but a glance through the pages was very rewarding in an of itself. My cursory review and feeling beat my expectations; the reproductions alone of Plath's art work knocked me out. The essays by Kathleen Connors, Diane Middlebrook, Fan Jinghua, Langdon Hammer, Sally Bayley, Christina Britzolakis, and an Afterword by Susan Gubar can only add to the books value and importance to Plath scholarship.
Throughout the Symposium I will try to post impressions, reviews of sessions I attend, photographs, details of Plathian fist fights and pub crawls and brawls. Additionally, if anyone participating wants to write up their impressions on sessions, please send me an email and I'll post it here.


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  1. Anonymous24 October, 2007 21:01

    Thanks for trying to do some updates, can't wait. Have a fabulous time - love the bookshop window pic. Still waiting for my Eye Rhymes.

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  2. Anonymous25 October, 2007 00:52

    Ah, for a fortune of 10,000 pounds a year or a stronger US dollar, I would be with ye now! Looking forward to reading and hearing about your impressions and how your own talk goes on Sunday. Have a wonderful time!

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  3. Annie Finch25 October, 2007 12:52

    HI Peter, I have just arrived in Oxford for the conference myself, Thursday evening, and it's still raining. I'm looking forward to watching your news "as it happens" and to meeting you soon--perhaps at Blackwells Bookshop where in a half hour (assuming I can find the right bus in time) I'll be reading from Plath's work and my own poems influenced by her. I am expecting to be moved by this immersion in a great poet and celebrating, in spite of the sad reality, her 75th birthday and the "elder" status never attained by so many women poets of her generation.

    Annie Finch

    PS I had lunch with Diane Middlebrook, my dear former teacher at Stanford, just before getting on the train to Oxford. She sends love and blessings to all at the conference.

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