Skip to main content

Update from the Sylvia Plath 2012 Symposium Day 2

Lynda K Bundtzen began the day discussing Sylvia Plath’s psychotherapy, use of unconscious in 1958 poems. Making use of Plath's therapy notes with Dr. Ruth Beuscher, Lynda referred at times to Sigmund Freud's "Mourning and Meloncholia", Lacan, and Letters Home, and looking applicably at several poems by Sylvia Plath, among them "The Beekeeper's Daughter," "Man in Black," "Electra on Azalea Path," "The Colossus," "Daddy," and "Purdah."

Langdon Hammer spoke on James Merrill’s use of Ouija Board for poetry inspiration. Hammer has been at work on a biography of Merrill for a decade which is most definitely a labor of love. It promises to be thorough and excellent, judging from the essays of his that I have read and the presentations through which I have sat. This was not a paper on Sylvia Plath, but Hammer did refer to Plath's practice of Ouijaing with Ted Hughes.

Between this and the 1 o'clock panel with poets talking about Plath influenced their poetic process...I went to the Lilly Library to continue feeding my archival fever. I feel badly for missing Linda Adele Goodine and Suzie Hanna's talk on juvenile/adult fantasy, liminal space between waking and dreaming in visual art and film; but I am hopeful that some kind person has taken notes and will considering typing up a review which can be posted here on this blog, or, on a blog of their own.

The poets discussing Plath's influence on their poetic process was quite interesting. A couple of them found and defined Plath to be a confessional poet, which is really at odds with the way she is classified by scholars, critics and academics. In some ways, technology and Starbucks notwithstanding, we might have been in 1975 rather than 2012! Each of the poets caught something off of Plath's poetry (and life) that spurned them into their vocation. A quite wonderful panel with deeply sincere memories of the importance of Plath in their lives: both that initial spark and how Plath continues to be a presence in their poems.

The discussion on Plath Profiles and Plath on the web was not as good as it could have been because Bill Buckley, the founder of Plath Profiles, was unable to attend at the last moment. This unfortunately left me on the stage alone and I can only offer my condolences to the brave people that sat through it! I did read some prepared remarks by Bill about his desire to create a journal dedicated to Plath and its founding at the 2007 Plath Symposium at Oxford.

After this it was back briefly to the Lilly Library to look at a few more things to close out the day. My call for people to meet at 5:30 (see post yesterday) was met by one or two brave souls. Thank you: you know who you are. With any luck, somehow, all the panels will have summaries written about them but at least there will be a good few writes ups to which we can look forward to reading.

Popular posts from this blog

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

Sylvia Plath's Gravestone Vandalized

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

Sylvia Plath and McLean Hospital

In August when I was in the final preparations for the tour of Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar sites, I found that I had long been mistaken about a couple of things. This is my coming clean. It was my intention in this blog post to discuss just McLean, but I found myself deeply immersed in other aspects of Plath's recovery. The other thing I was mistaken about will be discussed in a separate blog post. I suppose I need to state from the outset that I am drawing conclusions from Plath's actual experiences from what she wrote in The Bell Jar and vice versa, taking information from the novel that is presently unconfirmed or murky and applying it to Plath's biography. There is enough in The Bell Jar , I think, based on real life to make these decisions. At the same time, I like to think that I know enough to distinguish where things are authentic and where details were clearly made up, slightly fudged, or out of chronological order. McLean Hospital was Plath's third and last