Such a wonderful, nuanced essay, and so generous: "I want you to enjoy the rare privilege of reading Syliva Plath without tangling it up with the end of her life."
‘She always appeals to a certain kind of girl,’ said my school English Lit. teacher. She didn’t mean it kindly.
I was that kind of girl too, and I have a special place in my heart for all those girls. Looking forward to revisiting Plath when I have some time this weekend.
I love this, all of it. It reminded me of discovering my love of words, & a teacher who helped with that, and also being a smart woman with feelings that feel too big to contain or explain at times. And of course, being all that, & someone's mama. Thank you.
So enjoyed reading this, this morning. It had been so long since I’d read any Plath or thought about my study of her writing. Thank you for bringing her back into the frame for me: I’ve enjoyed revisiting some of her poetry with my breakfast!
This is beautiful, the way you protect and yet enthuse with your son, whilst giving up a glimpse of young you. I’ve somehow brought up poetry lovers, and it’s so joyful to hear your adult children discussing literature over the dinner table (and occasionally in Latin - which is wonderful, odd, and I suspect so I can’t follow a lewd joke etc).
I have pre ordered the paperback! Looking forward to it.
Now, to Plath - “‘She always appeals to a certain kind of girl,’ said my school English Lit. teacher. She didn’t mean it kindly. That certain kind of girl was, of course, me: gloomy, morbid, at odds with all the bright, serious values that my school wanted me to embody.”
I self-consciously avoided Plath for this reason, aware that I was already ‘a certain kind of girl’ and not wanting to be any more clichéd, I think. But then I went off and wrote poems where I twisted the ‘is this a knife I see before me’ speech from MacB into a persona contemplating a bottle of pills, and thinking about taking too many of them…
Love this! You’ve expressed so much love and care for your son, for all of us past, current and future who are “a certain kind of girl”, to the adults we’ve become. Thank you.
Oh my goodness- this is so beautiful and wise. I will be re-reading and thinking about all of this for along time. I found myself sobbing throughout. Thank you.
This is exquisite. This has also brought up a sadness for me - that I have missed out on properly engaging with poetry because of how we're taught poetry at school. The over analysis in order to produce a smugly intelligent conclusion about a poem turned me off it. Because how did the teachers know what the poet meant without asking the poet?! I was enraged at their confidence. On the whole I still find poetry inaccessible with the exception of Mary Oliver and John O'Donahue. For years I have seen poetry as pretentious but maybe that's been me being defensive that I actually don't understand a lot of it. Oh Katherine your writing unearths so much in me!
Such a wonderful, nuanced essay, and so generous: "I want you to enjoy the rare privilege of reading Syliva Plath without tangling it up with the end of her life."
‘She always appeals to a certain kind of girl,’ said my school English Lit. teacher. She didn’t mean it kindly.
I was that kind of girl too, and I have a special place in my heart for all those girls. Looking forward to revisiting Plath when I have some time this weekend.
I love this, all of it. It reminded me of discovering my love of words, & a teacher who helped with that, and also being a smart woman with feelings that feel too big to contain or explain at times. And of course, being all that, & someone's mama. Thank you.
So enjoyed reading this, this morning. It had been so long since I’d read any Plath or thought about my study of her writing. Thank you for bringing her back into the frame for me: I’ve enjoyed revisiting some of her poetry with my breakfast!
This is beautiful, the way you protect and yet enthuse with your son, whilst giving up a glimpse of young you. I’ve somehow brought up poetry lovers, and it’s so joyful to hear your adult children discussing literature over the dinner table (and occasionally in Latin - which is wonderful, odd, and I suspect so I can’t follow a lewd joke etc).
I have pre ordered the paperback! Looking forward to it.
Now, to Plath - “‘She always appeals to a certain kind of girl,’ said my school English Lit. teacher. She didn’t mean it kindly. That certain kind of girl was, of course, me: gloomy, morbid, at odds with all the bright, serious values that my school wanted me to embody.”
I self-consciously avoided Plath for this reason, aware that I was already ‘a certain kind of girl’ and not wanting to be any more clichéd, I think. But then I went off and wrote poems where I twisted the ‘is this a knife I see before me’ speech from MacB into a persona contemplating a bottle of pills, and thinking about taking too many of them…
I have to say, I LOVE the vivid UK colors of your book covers! Just beautiful!
Love this! You’ve expressed so much love and care for your son, for all of us past, current and future who are “a certain kind of girl”, to the adults we’ve become. Thank you.
Oh my goodness- this is so beautiful and wise. I will be re-reading and thinking about all of this for along time. I found myself sobbing throughout. Thank you.
Goodness me. Can't spin any fancier words following that. This is a corker this week Katherine. Thankyou.
Wonderful to be brought back to Plath — such an important writer for this “certain kind of girl”. Thank you. Also still angry at Ted Hughes
Thanks Katherine, a very real way to see Sylvia and her work.
This is exquisite. This has also brought up a sadness for me - that I have missed out on properly engaging with poetry because of how we're taught poetry at school. The over analysis in order to produce a smugly intelligent conclusion about a poem turned me off it. Because how did the teachers know what the poet meant without asking the poet?! I was enraged at their confidence. On the whole I still find poetry inaccessible with the exception of Mary Oliver and John O'Donahue. For years I have seen poetry as pretentious but maybe that's been me being defensive that I actually don't understand a lot of it. Oh Katherine your writing unearths so much in me!