Listening to: Fugitive, Indigo Girls, Swamp Ophelia
BOOKS
Sylvia Plath
Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963
Selected and Edited with Commentary by Aurelia Schober Plath
This book made me so very sad. I put it down with a heavy heart and haven't even wanted to explore how I felt about it, for a while at least. The ending, well, it just killed me.
In this collection of letters sent home by Sylvia Plath, we are shown the subject viewed by her family, and boy, do we just fall in love with her. Sylvia was a delightful person, very mature for her age always, insightful, and talented. She was also very ambitious. In these years, we see how she sets goals for herself and her writing. In her late teens she was sending out articles to Seventeen, and was a published author of short stories before she made it into Smith College. We see her struggles through the letters, stories of dates with boys and always a dedication to her art. She agonized endlessly about her works being sent out, always with great excitement and fear all the same. She set timetables and developed relationships with editors. Her ambition was strong, and we see how fiercely she pursued her writing goals.
Once I read comments from fans about the movie based on her life (see Sylvia), and some were angry that the movie only starts around the time Sylvia meets Ted Hughes, who became her husband. Her fans were angry at the injustice, because by only looking at that part of her life, you miss all the stuff that came before, and that is the stuff that was remarkable about Sylvia. If you only saw her in relation to Hughes, you missed her achievements before him, such as the attainment of a Fullbright scholarship to earn her M.A. at Cambridge and the scores of published poems and stories she had under her belt before she married the man who would outshine her and then walk out on her, leaving her to face her demons alone.
Sylvia was determined to be a writer, and not just any writer, but a Writer, one of significance and fame. Her marriage with Ted Hughes complimented that dream, as he was also a published poet some few years older than her, and who challenged her and pushed her as a poet. Her letters talk about the help he gave her in terms of studying for her masters degree and inspiring many euphoric poems involving nature.
After I had watched the movie "Sylvia", I had been mad for three days over Ted Hughes. After this book, I can't say that was any different. However, I did understand things a lot better. I see why she had fallen in love with him, and stayed in love with him. There is so much happiness in their early years. Sometimes I wondered, while reading this book, how much happiness was worth the unhappy ending? Does the means justify the end?
And poor Sylvia, she put up such a courageous front. Her letters are always positive, and full of hope, and you wonder how this was a girl who suffered from depressive thoughts. Was it a shield to her family of her true deeper struggles? In the commentary by her mother, we learn of an episode Sylvia had where she had to withdraw from school due to mental breakdown, around the time she was rejected for a prestigious writing class.
This episode was clear in S.'s mind as something to avoid, and also perhaps she wanted to not worry her mother with. Perhaps her later struggles with Ted were something she didn't feel comfortable writing home about. Problems arose when Ted began having an affair, and S. was very jealous and sad about it. During this time, she never wrote news home about it, but it was readily apparent when her mom came to visit them for that summer. Shortly after, Sylvia Plath divorced Ted Hughes, which was very difficult for her financially. She retained full care of their two young children, Frieda and Nick. (Coincidentally, and tragically, during the time I was reading this book, news broke that Nicolas Plath,"Nick", committed suicide in Alaska).
After this break up of her ten year marriage, she struggled to make ends meet and continue writing. It was the coldest winter in London's history. Keeping warm, she would write in the morning before the kids rose. She was extremely sick of the flu, nearly died of it during this time, but this was also the most productive few months of her life. She was considered a quite famous poet in London around this time period, and had meetings with editors and two books in publication...when the book ends abruptly with the arrival of sad news for the mother of this wonderful woman.
The last letter in the book was dated February 4, 1963, and is full of assurances that things are looking up, she has plans for the future, she wants her mom not to worry about her. This last letter ends with the mention that she will see a doctor referred to her who will "help me weather this difficult time".
This is how the book ends (which is the most tragic part, but if you don't like spoilers, you don't have to read it).
On February 12, 1963, my sister received a cablegram from Ted, telling us "Sylvia died yesterday" and giving details of the time and place of the funeral service.
Her physical energies had been depleted by illness, anxiety and overwork, and although she had for so long managed to be gallant and equal to the life experience, some darker day than usual had temporaily made it seem impossible to pursue.
Sniff.
more on that later

Sketching

Over the years of being a Kerouac fan, I sometimes would try to examine what it was exactly that I liked so much about his work. Part of the appreciation I have for him as an "artist" with words lies in his ability to describe scenes in such detail that one gained a unique sense of being in the action.
This feature of Kerouac's writing he called "sketching".
Before I realized that was his label for it, which makes sense, I was doing a little sketching of my own. I was never a visual person, but I was driven with a need to explain my existence in the world through a creative medium. I have come to feel that writing is a tool for expression that has more dimensions than a visual still life.
I like my life to come alive.
I, like Kerouac, was known to my friends as always having a notebook in my backpocket, transcribing experience. I usually tended towards free verse. Here is a sample of a sketch of my own, written in 1998 in Manitou Springs, Colorado.

Sketches from a Manitou Laundromat
There's a boy,
A thinker, observer, dreamer
He sits and watches the street
Glances at the others now and then
I wonder what his meaning is
And if he finds it here
A girl pulls up in a shiny red car
Baby seat in the back
Couldn't be more than eighteen
Pensively washes her man's clothes
Twists her lip nervously
Her shorts hang low
So we can notice her navel
And its shiny adornment
Flashing above long legs

Three Mennonite women
Wearing matching silk dresses
And white bonnets
Speaking a strange tongue
Bewildered by machinery
They all wear nurses shoes
And add coins to others dryers
Just to be nice

A woman walks in
Hair a mess
She wears a nice dress
With a fanny pack
And a confused smile
Must be a nice little nut
She wears socks over her
Knee high stockings
And drools a grin your way

Another boy, loner like me
Carries all his belongings
In a duffel bag
Washes his socks and underwear
Long deep scars over his arm
Nicely dressed
He walks off down the street
To a friend's couch,
perhaps, or a welcoming girl

I pass him on the way home
He is still walking

I found these little gems in my poetry journal circa 2004. I thought they were reminscent of two "conversations" I've been having lately.

Homages

To the thousand nights of loneliness
To the sound of love
Falling not on my ears
To the brief encounters
So quick in passing
And the inexhaustible truth
Underneath it all:

That I will never behold
My mother's love
Except reflected
In the love for my son

and this one, whom for now I'll dedicate to Holli.

I play this game all the time
Wonder what we would say
If we suddenly ran into another
What would I be dying to tell you?
Would I tell you about my work,
My son, my man, my mystery?
The dog instead of the horse,
The Also-Ran instead of the champ.
How am I doing these days?
I hardy know my self,
Though I spend all my time exploring

The way we shift and change
And yet still remain the same