Skip to main content

An Apology and a Promise from Sylvia Plath Info Blog

The following is a transcription of the public statement offered by Peter K. Steinberg of the Sylvia Plath Info Blog, which aired on Seattle's WC8H10N4O2 (the Starbucks Network) this morning at 4:01 A.M. local time.

For the last eight years, Sylvia Plath Info Blog has been providing posts on Sylvia Plath covering a range of topics including archival materials, to newsworthy events, books and book reviews, and quasi-live blogging from conferences.

Unfortunately, much the content and information presented has been done so under the influence of performance enhancing drugs. Admitting this at this point in time (I was going to hand write it in the attempt to have it come off as more sincere) is a big step for me in conquering the problem.

Continually I had intended to try to break free of the grip these drugs have had on me. But to no avail. I want to apologize deeply and sincerely if I have let any of you down as a result of this admission.

Kindness--in the form of comments, followers, and emails--served only to egg me on in a way I am sure none of the blog's readers intended. But naturally, defensiveness and over-sensitivity has led me to privately blame each of you in the attempt to not accept accountability for my actions.

Youth was passing me by, and I felt desperate to keep up both with the more seasoned and recognized Sylvia Plath scholars, as well as trying not to lag too behind the newer, smarter, and more talented ones.

Only one option seemed right: the cheating option.

Under no circumstances did I ever think I would be caught, but caught I was. Which has led to this statement. Recent history of politicians and professional athletes also being caught doing various nefarious deeds has led me to believe that a full acceptance of responsibility --no matter how disingenuous-- followed by a period of laying low, will provide the opportunity for the masses of us with short-term memory issues (developed from being over-stimulated on media in all its various formats and functions) will allow me to make a full and triumphant comeback.

Just about twenty-four hours from now, I will be entering a program to ween myself off of these drugs in an attempt to get my life back. It is a very rigorous program and will test my strength and will.

Unless this turns out to be a failed recovery, I hope to return to blogging on Sylvia Plath -- and doing so cleanly -- by the end of the month or maybe sometime in May. I hope you understand and forgive any silence from this blog in the meantime. It is imperative that I go through with this.

Let it not go unsaid that I feel as though I have let you all down. Which is weird considering, obviously, you are all in some ways responsible...  I will do everything in my power to crush this demon. To rise from the ashes like "Lady Lazarus" herself.

I make a promise to you to that should I succeed in shocking my system clean and clear of this performance enhancing drug, I will return better, bigger, and stronger. More terrible than ever I was. More ferocious a Plath scholar than can be fathomed, with a heart dedicated to being a clean scholar.

Only time will tell, I suppose, if I can defeat this. My only hope is that you, dear readers, can give me a second chance.

Thank you for reading and for being so understanding.

--Sylvia Plath Info (aka Peter K. Steinberg)

Popular posts from this blog

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

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 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