On 18 September I posted about Sylvia Plath broadsides. I referred to a broadside of a poem entitled "Pigeon Post".
On a recent visit to Smith College, I found this poem in the working papers for Plath's Collected Poems. These working papers contain all known versions of Plath's poetry, either in typescript or printed version. It's a very remarkable part of the collection that I didn't know existed. The typescript indicates this to be a poem belonging to the 'Cambridge Manuscript', poems Plath submitted as part of her final examinations as a student at Newnham College, Cambridge University. This dates the poem between 1955 and 1957; but as it was not included in The Collected Poems, it can be presumed to be from 1955.
Only three libraries list themselves as owning this broadside, the University of Chicago, Princeton, and Cambridge University. I obtained a high quality digital scan of the broaside in the mail the other day. It's the poem, centered on the page, on a blue background. There are no other images. The copyright statement reads, "1993 Frieda and Nicholas Hughes". Underneath that is the Turret logo and the following text, "Published by Bernard Stone and Raymond Danowski. The Turret Bookshop, London May 1993".
Pigeon Post
In barren regions
of skeptic fall,
I split my soul
into twin pigeons
and hurled them hard
beyond life's wall to bring me word.
With homing spiral
one drops from heaven,
blue plumage riven
and plucked by peril,
to cry, as I feared:
"I was not given
bed or board."
Bloored to the roost
glides my other bird,
plump-fed, admired,
from an elegant nest
in the fields of hell:
"Mistress, I fared
the well."
On a recent visit to Smith College, I found this poem in the working papers for Plath's Collected Poems. These working papers contain all known versions of Plath's poetry, either in typescript or printed version. It's a very remarkable part of the collection that I didn't know existed. The typescript indicates this to be a poem belonging to the 'Cambridge Manuscript', poems Plath submitted as part of her final examinations as a student at Newnham College, Cambridge University. This dates the poem between 1955 and 1957; but as it was not included in The Collected Poems, it can be presumed to be from 1955.
Only three libraries list themselves as owning this broadside, the University of Chicago, Princeton, and Cambridge University. I obtained a high quality digital scan of the broaside in the mail the other day. It's the poem, centered on the page, on a blue background. There are no other images. The copyright statement reads, "1993 Frieda and Nicholas Hughes". Underneath that is the Turret logo and the following text, "Published by Bernard Stone and Raymond Danowski. The Turret Bookshop, London May 1993".
Pigeon Post
In barren regions
of skeptic fall,
I split my soul
into twin pigeons
and hurled them hard
beyond life's wall to bring me word.
With homing spiral
one drops from heaven,
blue plumage riven
and plucked by peril,
to cry, as I feared:
"I was not given
bed or board."
Bloored to the roost
glides my other bird,
plump-fed, admired,
from an elegant nest
in the fields of hell:
"Mistress, I fared
the well."
Peter I have, what I think, is the sheaf(copies of course!) of Cambridge MSS poems from Smith, but I cannot find 'Pigeon-post' amongst them. Do you have any further evidence that it was included in this collection please?
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