- I received an email about a Concert of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes settings called, 'Setting Agendas', to be held on 18 September, at 6pm, at St. Nicholas' Church, Chawton, Alton, Hamshire, GU34 in England.
This chamber concert features four song cycles by contemporary British composers, including settings of poems by Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. Featured composers include Michael Finnissy, George Holloway,Will May, and Michael Zev Gordon. Works set include Plath's 'Winter Trees', 'Sheep in Fog', and 'The NightDances', and Hughes' 'Remains of Elmet' poety sequence. The latter is a world premiere by Michael Zev Gordon, winner of the 2008 British Composer Award for Choral Composition.
The works will be performed by soprano Lucy Williams, baritone Terence Ayebare, and pianist Lucy Coluquhn. Admission is free with a suggested £5 donation to St. Nicholas' Church. More information about thechurcn and its location can be found here. - Thanks to P. Viktor for pointing out an archived Women's Hour recording on "The Art of Sylvia Plath" from 5 November 2007. It's just over 11 minutes long. This is, wonderfully, seemingly, available everywhere. It's an interview with Kathleen Connors and Ruth Fainlight and includes a clip of an interview with Plath from "Two of a Kind." Ruth Fainlight reads "The Ghost", a poem she wrote about Plath. Kathleen Connors' and Sally Bayley's Eye Rhymes: Sylvia Plath's Art of the Visual is a remarkable book, heavily illustrated with high quality, clear reproductions of Plath's artwork and wonderful essays to discuss Plath's art. It's required reading for Plath's readers.
- Plath receives some coverage in Elaine Showalter's recently published A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Anne Proulx. (New York: Knopf, 2009). Plath is covered in some depth in the following sections: "The Poetess of America - Sylvia Plath" on pages 415-417 and "Plath - the Death of the Poet" and "The Bell Jar: A 1960s Jury of Her Peers" on pages 434-440.
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...
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