Links, reviews, etc. - week ending 29 March 2008

Two news items to report this week:

Plath Profiles is making progress.
I've recently been informed about a new publication that Sylvia Plath readers might be interested in reading. It is Lady Lazarus by Andrew F. Altschul.

The book is about "poetry, punk rock, and suicide." It's the story of Calliope Bird Morath, the daughter of famous punk rockers. Her father committed suicide when she was four years old, and she has grown up to be a "confessional poet," hounded by the media and haunted by her memories of her father. It's set in Southern California during the "grunge revolution" of the early 1990s, as well as in the crazed celebrity culture of the 21st century, and is partly narrated by a washed-up music journalist who has become obsessed with Calliope, her father, and the connections between rock and roll and poetry.

Lady Lazarus is not about Sylvia Plath... however, the title is an obvious reference, and in general I think the main character springs from a tradition of troubled artists that includes - and maybe starts with - Sylvia Plath and the mesmerizing speaker of the poem "Lady Lazarus." Anyone who reads Plath's poetry, and is interested in the story of her life, might find something to like in this novel.

You can read more at LadyLazarus.com or at the books Amazon.com page.

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Famous Quotes of Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath inspires us all in various and wonderful ways. She is in many respects a form of comfort to us, which is something that Esther Greenwood expresses in The Bell Jar , about a bath: "There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them. Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.'" We read and remember Sylvia Plath for many reasons, many of them deeply personal and private. But we commemorate her, too, in very public ways, as Anna of the long-standing Tumblr Loving Sylvia Plath , has been tracking, in the form of tattoos. (Anna's on Instagram with it too, as SylviaPlathInk .) The above bath quote is among Sylvia Plath's most famous. It often appears here and there and it is stripped of its context. But I think most people will know it is from her nove...

Some final photographs of Sylvia Plath

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Sylvia Plath's Gravestone Vandalized

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