The following is a Q & A with
Gail Crowther, author of many wonderful essays and books on Sylvia Plath. Her current project is a joint biography under the working title of
Kicking at the Door of Fame, which explores the social rebellion of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. The book is under contract with Simon & Schuster.
1. What was your familiarity level like with Anne Sexton before you started working on Kicking at the Door of Fame?
I wasn't as familiar with Sexton as Plath. I had read many of her poems and I'd read the Diane Middlebrook biography. I'd also visited her house in Weston and had a few extra dry martinis in The Ritz back in 2011. But my knowledge of her was mostly based on those moments when her life and work collided with Plath's, so she was less familiar to me as a woman and poet in her own right.
2. As you researched Sexton, did anything surprise you about her work, life, character?
Many many things surprised me about her and they kind of run parallel with Plath in a way. First of all, while appreciating her complexity, like Plath, her humour seems to have been massively overlooked. Working in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center, I was constantly chortling and laughing out loud, mainly at her letters. Working in the archive also brought home to me just how hard she worked and crafted her poems, and how hard other people saw her work – sometimes re-writing a poem twenty or more times until she was happy with it. I also got a real sense of what she was up against – male critics, sneery reviewers, because she was a woman daring to write about her lived experiences. I saw how that hurt her and how despite that she carried on writing with huge amounts of bravery and courage. But as I mentioned, there was also a complexity about her that I sometimes found quite difficult to handle. She could be the kindest and cruellest person. She could be the most loving person, then the nastiest. Her own childhood was complicated, and in some cases, traumatic, and she passed that onto her own children. These are very difficult, sensitive topics, but ones that have to be confronted with honesty and compassion.
3. In the archive, did you get a sense of Sexton that is different from Plath, whose archive as we know is so split up between repositories?
No I don't think so. Obviously Sexton was a very different character. More flamboyant than Plath and certainly I think more socially daring. But the experience of being in the archive was just as immersive. I read her letters and poems, handled her personal effects, and listened to her speaking and singing (drunkenly). It was an intense five days and I felt very sad saying goodbye to her. I guess if anything the main difference is when I first went into the Plath archives I already felt as though I 'knew' Plath (whatever we mean by that as a reader) whereas with Sexton I felt I got to know her much more through her archive, so perhaps that was the biggest difference.
4. Why do you think Sexton scholarship isn't as robust as Plath's? Or is it and I'm just not paying attention?
I think it is as robust, but it is just not as prolific. I don't know the reason for that. Certainly in the UK it may well be because, astonishingly, her books are out of print. It's a difficult question really. I suspect there are a number of interlinked reasons; researchers, writers, marketing, publishers…
5. Looking at their work... Which first book ranks higher: Sexton's To Bedlam and Part Way Back or Plath's The Colossus? And, whose second book was better: Sexton's All My Pretty Ones or Plath's Ariel? Or are these unfair questions?
Haha you're not going to draw me on that one! I think to rate their books in that way does Plath and Sexton a disservice, mainly because I think we should see them as two women who were trying to achieve very similar goals. Once they realised this, they offered each other support and encouragement. And they both influenced each other massively – initially Sexton on Plath, and then after
Ariel, Plath on Sexton. I like to see their poems running alongside each other, playfully exchanging ideas and moods, each impressed by the other, a sort of symbiotic poetical sisterhood sticking two fingers up at dreadful societal norms.
6. From where you began the idea for Kicking at the Door of Fame (the concept, the proposal, etc.) to now, has anything changed about the way you envisioned this book appearing?
Yes, I guess any book transforms and changes as you start work on it, and sometimes even with the best planning in the world, as you begin to write, new ideas occur, or you see links and patterns that didn't appear at the planning stage. For me that's the exciting part of writing, feeling something coming into being and not being too rigid about it. In the case of writing about Plath, there is the emergence all the time of new material as well, and so that can really add new information or perspectives as it becomes available. I expect that more changes will happen the further I get into the book and then my agent, Carrie, and editor, Alison, will also bring new angles, so it's an ongoing process, flexible, collaborative, but ultimately, always, celebratory.
Thank you, Gail. We all wish you continued inspiration as you work on
Kicking at the Door of Fame.
Books by Gail Crowther:
All links accessed 25 January 2020.
