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Showing posts from May, 2020

Sylvia Plath Talk: Proof of Plath

The last YouTube talk I plan on posting is a reading of my article "Proof of Plath" which was published in Fine Books & Collections (Spring 2011). The subject is uncorrected proofs of Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar which is a topic that fascinates me. It is under seven minutes in duration and I hope you enjoy the video. All links accessed 27 May 2020.

Sylvia Plath Zoomposium I Schedule

The Sylvia Plath Zoomposium I is next Saturday, 30 May 2020. The start time is 10 AM NYC time, 3 PM if you are in London. Outside of those two time zones, we shall leave it to you to sort it out! We wanted to post the schedule so that you can budget your time accordingly, though we naturally hope all will be present for the entire event. Thank you all for registering, the link to the event is in your confirmation email. And thank you for your patience, too, with the technology. It is our honest endeavor to have a fun, warm few hours together listening to some of the most interesting scholarship on Sylvia Plath. The following shows the order of the speakers and the expected start time for each. However, we are going one after the next and plan only to be ahead of schedule, not behind. Mona Arshi: 10:05-10:20/15:05-15:20 Heather Clark: 10:25-10:40/15:25-15:40 Sarah Corbett: 10:45-11:00/15:45-16:00 Amanda Golden: 11:05-11:20/16:05-16:20 Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick: 11:25-11:40/

Doubletake: Sylvia Plath’s two different biographies in The Modern Poets (1963)

The following is a guest blog post by Eirin Holberg, a Norwegian archaeologist and writer. Thank you Eirin! ~pks Two years ago on this day I read an interesting blog post on Sylvia Plath Info Blog about an anthology from 1963 I had not heard about before, containing two of Plath's poems. It was The Modern Poets: An American-British Anthology , edited by John Malcolm Brinnin and Bill Read, published by McGraw-Hill Book Company. The poems were "Black Rook in Rainy Weather" and "The Colossus". What interested me especially was that the anthology was released soon after her death, and that she may have been involved in the planning of it sometime during the last year of her life. It seemed like a fine selection of poetry, so I ordered an inexpensive copy of the same, hardback first edition described on the blog, a former library book from Stanford University Library, and a few weeks later it arrived in my mailbox in Norway. It is a beautifully produced and broa

New Sylvia Plath Info Talk: Sincerely Yours

In October 2012, at the Sylvia Plath Symposium at Indiana University, I presented on a number of things. One of them is this talk: "Sincerely yours: Sylvia Plath and The New Yorker ". (Another of them will be presented in Zoomposium II on 6 June.) In many ways this essay continued my interest and exploration in Plath's business correspondence which was first featured in the essays that went into These Ghostly Archives (those were the letters to and from the BBC). The correspondence is such a fascinating look into how a poem gets accepted and published, and the back-and-forth that sometimes takes place. At any rate, this talk is now up on the Sylvia Plath Info YouTube channel and I hope that you enjoy it. Note: While I am happy to present that talk (and its slides), I must inform you that this talk was significantly revised and published in Sylvia Plath in Context (2019). All links accessed 13 May 2020.

Sylvia Plath Archives Reading on YouTube

On Saturday 9 May 2020, Gail Crowther and I read Chapter 1 "'Riddled with ghosts': Absence and presence in the archive" from our book These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath (2017). We had a rather nice turn out which lead to a great question and answer session following the talk. We are happy to make our talk available to you now via my YouTube page. So, please enjoy! And thank you for listening. If you are interested in reading the book, please consider buying a copy if you have not already done so. All links accessed 10 May 2020.

New YouTube Video: "I should be loving this": Sylvia Plath's "The Perfect Place" and The Bell Jar

Back in 2007, I gave a talk "'I should be loving this': Sylvia Plath's 'The Perfect Place' and The Bell Jar " at the Sylvia Plath 75th Year Symposium at Oxford in October 2007. I was lucky enough to have a second opportunity to read a slightly revised version of it the following spring at a weekend Symposium at Smith College. Here is a Loom recording of the talk which is now on YouTube. Additionally, the talk was further revised and published later in 2008 which you can read in the the Articles and Essays section on  my Resources page on A celebration, this is . All links accessed 6 May 2020.

The Sylvia Plath Zoomposiums

Gail Crowther and I are happy to announce that registration for the both Sylvia Plath Zoomposiums are now open. The details are coming! The details are coming! Sylvia Plath Zoomposium I Date: 30 May 2020 Time: 10 am EDT/3 pm GMT This event has ended. The speakers for this first event are: Mona Arshi (UK) Heather Clark (US) Sarah Corbett (UK) Amanda Golden (US) Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick (US) Gary Leising (US) Maeve O'Brien (UK) Nic Presley (UK) Maria Rovito (US) David Trinidad (US) Sylvia Plath Zoomposium II Date: 6 June 2020 Time: 10 am EDT/3 pm GMT Click here to register for Sylvia Plath Zoomposium II The speakers for this first event are: Di Beddow (UK) Gail Crowther (UK) Peter Fydler (UK) Julie Irigaray (FR/UK) Giulia de Gregorio Listo (BR) Carl Rollyson (US) Kitty Shaw (UK) Peter K. Steinberg (US) Eva Stenskar (SE/US) Dorka Tamas (HU/UK) Emily Van Duyne (US) The Zoomposiums will be recorded. Each speaker will present consecutively wi