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Sylvia Plath Collections: ICA Archives

In a letter to her mother dated 24 June 1960 and excerpted in Letters Home, Sylvia Plath wrote about attending a cocktail party for W.H. Auden "last night" at Faber and Faber's (then located at 24 Russell Square (map). On this occasion, Plath witnessed Hughes being photographed with T.S. Eliot, Stephen Spender, Louis MacNeice, and W. H. Auden. After the party, she said: "Then we went to the Institute of Contemporary Arts and read our poems to an audience of about 25-30 young people with another poet (or, rather, non-poet; very dull)" (386).

I was curious about this poetry reading, about who the "dull" "non-poet" was, and so searched to see if the Institute of Contemporary Arts had an archive anywhere. I started at the ICA website and then learned that the records for the period covering Plath's lifetime are held in the Tate Museum archives.

The ICA London is among the Tate's list of all archival collections (TGA 955) and it seemed to me that TGA 955/1/5/3, "Correspondence about the organisation of poetry events", 1960-1964 was the likely place to start. So I emailed to see if they had any letters to or from Plath and other information about the reading.

Allison Foster at the Tate archives wrote back and could not have been more helpful and accommodating to the request. I should dispense of this information right off the bat and come clean: there are no letters from Plath. Or, none were found. However, there is a letter to Plath dated 29 March 1960. In this letter, Dorothy Morland (obit), Director of the ICA, asks if she would like to give a reading with two other poets at 8:15 p.m. on 23 June 1960. Anyone with an inkling of Plath's biography knows that the date of Morland's letter is just a few days before her first child, Frieda Rebecca Hughes, was born. The other two invited poets, who also were sent letters on 29 March 1960, were Ted Hughes and Alan Brownjohn. Brownjohn wrote back on 3 April 1960 accepting and asking a number of questions. The correspondence rounds out with a reply from Morland to Brownjohn on 12 April 1960.

So close! But again no letter from Plath or Hughes. Obviously they accepted the invitation since Plath wrote to her mother about the reading. A note on Brownjohn's letter, presumably in Morland's hand, reads "PRI 9132" which was the telephone number for the poetic couple at their 3 Chalcot Square flat. So, we can deduce that their acceptance was likely done over the telephone.

In Morland's 12 April 1960 reply to Brownjohn, she wrote: "The poets usually read in two periods of roughly ten minutes each, there is an interval after which we have questions and possibly one or two poems read again." She closed saying the duration was usually about 90 minutes and mentioned that Karl Miller (who recently passed away) would act as chair.

How I would love to know which poems were read! To that point in 1960 according to Collected Poems, Plath had written just one poem, "You're" in January or February 1960. It is possible that Plath read this poem. Based on her submissions lists held by Smith College, it might be possible to guess at other poems Plath selected to read based on manuscripts she sent out to various magazines between January and May.  Those poems include: "The Beggars", "Blue Moles", "The Manor Garden", "Medallion", "Poem for a Birthday" (or any of its component parts), "The Burnt-out Spa", "A Winter Ship", "I Want, I Want", "The Colossus", "Maudlin", and "The Eye-Mote".

All links accessed 24 July and 1 October 2014.

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