Sylvia Plath | Poetry Hut Blog

I’m going to Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness in March. I bought a plane ticket but I don’t know where I’m staying yet. I’ve only been to D.C. once, for some computer security training. But I took a train to the Mall area and wandered around for half a day. Saw about an hour’s worth of the Smithsonian. I wish I had more time to see stuff but I won’t. I’d like to meet with my members of Congress, too, but I won’t be there on those specified constituent days. After all the letters I’ve written them I’m not sure their staff would schedule me anyway hahaha.

Poetry News For January 4, 2008

Poetry News:

— The most important American love poet in living memory, and certainly one of the most important American poets —

— Vet Post Honors PTSD Victim, a Suicide [his poems are here] —

— Sylvia Plath’s art of the visual —

— New York poet and Toledo’s Zin String Quartet to perform multimedia tribute to geniuses —

— “Poesía diaria” rinde honor a desaparecidos en Argentina [English translation at this link]—

— Jean Sprackland, of Southport, took the title in the poetry category of the Costa Book awards, formerly known as the Whitbread Prize —

So what online archive can I pillage for poetry news now? I already did the free NYT and Time Magazine archives. What I learned from those articles:

a. the public has never supported poetry
b. poets have never made any $ from poetry
c. women poets have always been marginalized but at least some aren’t called “spinsters” anymore
d. poetry has never sold
hahaha

Poetry News For November 27, 2007

Poetry News:

— How Does the New Poetry Differ from the Old?; Amy Lowell Laments the Lack of Authoritative Criticism in America — Says No One Should Make a Living by Writing — By Joyce Kilmer —

— it’s impossible not to ask some hard questions about his status and whether it is deserved —

— In a poem of this sort one is trying to record the precise instant when a thing outward and objective transforms itself, or darts into a thing inward and subjective —

— BJP seeks political refugee status for Taslima —

— Havana-born, Chicago-based writer Achy Obejas first won a NEA grant for her poetry in 1986 —

— As good as life gets —

— Love, Ted —

— Many thought that Ivor Gurney’s claim to be ‘England’s first war poet’ was a symptom of his insanity —

My mom is intensive care again, so I may stop blogging (without much notice).

Poetry News for October 27, 2007 pt. 2

More birthday. Happy Birthday:

— The University of Oxford and Indiana University are pleased to announce a joint interdisciplinary conference commemorating Sylvia Plath’s 75th birthday —

— Oxford Marks 75 Years Of Sylvia Plath —

— A Kind of Heroism —

— One for Life, One for Death —

— Sylvia Plath’s Tupperware years —

Firesong
by: Sylvia Plath

Born green we were
to this flawed garden,
but in speckled thickets, warted as a toad,
spitefully skulks our warden,
fixing his snare
which hauls down buck, cock, trout, till all most fair
is tricked to faulter in split blood.

Now our whole task’s to hack
some angel-shape worth wearing
from his crabbed midden where all’s wrought so awry
that no straight inquiring
could unlock
shrewd catch silting our each bright act back
to unmade mud cloaked by sour sky.

Sweet salts warped stem
of weeds we tackle towards way’s rank ending;
scorched by red sun
we heft globed flint, racked in veins’ barbed bindings;
brave love, dream
not of staunching such strict flame, but come,
lean to my wound; burn on, burn on.

Poetry News for October 1, 2007

Poetry News:

— For many years now, the most popular poet in America has been a 13th-century mystical Muslim scholar —

— Poetry of all kinds, but war poetry in particular, has a different significance for a cadet at West Point than it does for undergraduates at most other colleges and universities —

— DePauw Professor’s Gift Creates Writing Professorship in His Late Wife’s Name —

— Computer turns prosaic dunces into lyrical poets —

— Celebrating Sylvia Plath’s 75th b’day —

— University of Redlands professor wins 2007 PEN poetry award —

— Cities of Refuge is an organization that takes in banned writers, hoping to bring them from hostile homelands to live and work in a U.S. city [and more] —

— there is no denying that there has been racist undertow among some of America’s most distinguished poets —

— Los Angeles poetry wanted —

— Professor Laments Wall Of Privacy’s Rigidity —

— a small band of skilled writers is learning to compose poems under an instructor whose first book of poetry was published this summer and is beginning to attract national attention [congrats] —

‘Maggot Art’ Offers Children Colorful Lesson In Entomology

Poetry News for September 10, 2007

Poetry News:

— Podcast options aplenty for poetry [ congrats Thom ] —

— Poets Resort to Guerilla Marketing —

— On the same day, “Verses,” DiFranco’s first published collection of poems and lyrics, will be released —

— Would-be authors say they were let down; ‘vanity’ publisher says business went bad —

— Responses to the anthology question from last week —

— I Demand to Speak with God by Kay Ryan —

— A rookie poet might fear to write poems that included the names of other poets, as though the life of art were not quite part of life —

— Coalition Aims to Expose Shakespeare —

— hmmmm —

What kind of bizarro world have we stepped into?

Poetry News for August 16, 2007

Poetry News:

— Revealed: Sylvia Plath’s unseen art, discovered in the attic —

— Stevensville man named state’s poet laureate —

— A culmination of sorts came in 1983 when we collaborated with Dudley Randall‘ Broadside Press —

— Sterling family mourns loss of “˜Mary Had a Little Lamb”™ home —

— First, I offer you “Lot’s Wife,” a poem written by Anna Akhmatova in the early 1920s and translated from the Russian by Stanley Kunitz with Max Hayward —

— Ex-guide says he’s mystery observer of poet’s birthday —

Poethood and motherhood and bloggerhood.

You guys are quiet.

Poetry News for August 6, 2007

Poetry News:

— Shakespeare in Dogpatch - Of sonnets and comic strips [link courtesy afitf thank you] —

— Apartment Complex Where Charles Bukowski Wrote “Post Office” For Sale, Could Be Leveled [link found here thank you] —

— Southern book festival announces authors for this year’s event [we have room for 1 guest if you plan to attend and are not an axe-murderer] —

— Emotional poem fills screen —

— The Gotham Book Mart (it was originally Gotham Book and Art) became known for embracing avant-garde and, occasionally, controversial writers and challenging censorship —

— Is Southern literature exhausted? —

— SUNY Brockport seeks to restore paintings of E.E. Cummings —

— Simic Interview at NPR —

— X-Ray of a Van Gogh Reveals 2nd Painting —

— To make the top reaches of this list, I was told by Brent Cunningham, S.P.D.‘ operations director, you need to sell roughly 100 copies a month —

I enjoyed “Masters of Science Fiction” & am looking forward to the next episodes. Stephen Hawking narrates it. Speaking of alternate universes: China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate

Awww. More niece. She kinda looks like she got all of our modicum of Native American genes.

And some deep-linking to the NY Times:

— Featured Author: Ishmael Reed With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Allen Ginsberg With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Jack Kerouac With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Langston Hughes With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Randall Jarrell With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Seamus Heaney With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: James Merrill With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Joseph Brodsky With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Robert Frost With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: James Dickey With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: James Joyce With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Margaret Atwood With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Sylvia Plath With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— [More] Featured Author: Sylvia Plath With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Ted Hughes With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— More on Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Hart Crane With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Maxine Kumin With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Federico GarcÃa Lorca With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: William S. Burroughs With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Subject: Cole Porter With News and Reviews From the Archives of The New York Times —

— Featured Author: Charles Bukowski With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: W. S. Merwin With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— [More] Featured Author: W. S. Merwin With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

— Featured Author: Kenneth Koch With News and Reviews From the Archives of The NYT —

Poetry News for July 16, 2007

Poetry News:

— Poetic Theaters, Romantic Fevers [one can always check NYT for poetry-related articles here] —

— Sonnets served with a slice of pi —

— Revisiting North Carolina’s finest poet —

— “This is a clip from the new Bob Dylan movie. It stars Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan and David Cross as Allen Ginsberg.” —

— Palestinian Poet Blasts Infighting —

— He felt that doing the work was a rehearsal for the work itself, and each rehearsal then became its own work [Thanks to Helen Frost for the link] —

— Poetry of the beach —

This is from Crossing the Water. (I disagree & like it better than Ariel and I like how the metaphors act like small bombs of surprise as you read the poems.) And I wish she’d've written more poems like this because whoo:

Maudlin

Mud-mattressed under the sign of the hag
In a clench of blood, the sleep-talking virgin
Gibbets with her curse the moon’s man
Faggot-bearing Jack in his crackless egg:

Hatched with a claret hogshead to swig
He kings it, navel-knit to no groan,
But at the price of a pin-stitched skin
Fish-tailed girls purchase each white leg.

Poetry News for June 24, 2007

Poetry News:

— Sometimes, he keeps his musing, vernacular voice so moderate in tone that the writing reminds me of a baseball term for certain pitchers, “sneaky fast” —

— Conjugated Visits by Diane Kirsten Martin —

— Truro hosts exhibit on poet Elizabeth Bishop —

— best known for his poem “Over the Hill to the Poor House” —

— Love nest of poets Ted and Sylvia up for sale and [pics]—

— BOOKS THROWN AT ‘LEROY’ - FRAUD AUTHOR MUST PAY —

— Recalling the time when Americans learned and recited poetry together —

Poetry News for June 10, 2007

Poetry News:

— Sometimes life goes on happening at such a rate that we lose track of ourselves, then, when faced with what we have become, we find ourselves unrecognisable —

— join[ing] the rare company of living authors whose life’s work is enshrined in the Library of America —

— she wants to show how the west doesn’t get Africa —

— Skillfully used, jazz and poetry can complement one another —

— Haiku as a road rage management technique? —

— not amused —

— The first known evidence of the term is found in an English and Latin poem [not safe for work -- the "term" is the same one Ralphie said when he helped his dad change a tire] —

Freudian psychology makes me laaaaugh. [Edit: besides, it was the 12th house Saturn in Cap opposing her Cancer Pluto.] Duh.

Plath Math

I apologize to any of you who (like me a little bit) are on the color-blind side. I couldn’t resist posting this, my favorite poem. Makes me cry every time. I think it is the sheer sound of it.
r
k
n
l
nt

Black Rook in Rainy Weather

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain –
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design –,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can’t honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then –
Thus hallowing an intervaestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); sceptical
Yet politic, ignorant

Of whatever angel any choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur.
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance
Miracles. The wait’s begun again,
The long wait for the angel,

For that rare, random descent
.

If you've clicked on a tag, you will see posts from my blog that have featured that tag. At the bottom of the page is a list of all the tags I've ever used on this blog. -- Jilly