Sylvia Plath: Did you know...

In early 1998, for those of us who were alive, the poetry world was abuzz with Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and, sad to say, Jewel. The first two because of Birthday Letters. The third name, because...well, it was a dark time...

In March 1998, Robert Haas was recently replaced as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress by Robert Pinksy, but he was a the author of a weekly "Poet's Choice" column in The Washington Post's Sunday insert Book World. He would feature a poem and discuss it. It was must-read reading for me at the time; the column stopped in 2000.

Did you know... Haas' "Poet's Choice" selection for Sunday 15 March 1998 was Sylvia Plath's "By Candlelight". The following week was a poem by Ted Hughes ("Crow's Nerve Fails").

I found the above clipping mixed in with some of my files as I was going through them recently. Haas published a collection of his "Poet's Choice" essays in 2008 under the title Now and Then: The Poet's Choice Columns, 1997-2000.

All links accessed 10 June 2022.

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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

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