“A Voice That Will Not Be Still” — A Celebration of Sylvia Plath’s (Belated) Birthday and an Interview with Peter K. Steinberg
Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932.
Her father, Otto Plath, was a college professor and an expert on bees, from Germany. Her mother, Aurelia Schober, had been one of his students. Although born in Boston, Plath ended up spending a portion of her childhood in Winthrop by the sea.
She was an artist from the beginning, precocious and immersed— journaling, making poems and self-portraits and collages, designing clothing. (Her first poem was published in Boston Herald in 1941!) Not long after her eighth birthday, she lost her father. His death seemed a betrayal — something she’d wrestle with for the rest of her life. She attended Smith College on a scholarship and excelled, earning a guest editorship at Mademoiselle in New York City, though this was an emotionally draining experience (and period of her life) that she’d base her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar off of less than a decade later. When Plath disappeared in late August of 1953, she was set on ending the pain. Her younger brother Warren found her semi-comatose in a crawlspace three days later, having taken nearly all of their mother’s sleeping pills. But this was not the end. She awakened.
Plath received treatment at McLean Hospital and went on to earn a Fulbright scholarship to study in Cambridge, where she met and secretly married poet Ted Hughes. Her poetry collection The Colossus came out in 1960, her novel The Bell Jar in 1963. Between these triumphs was the ebb and flow of life: daughter Frieda was born; son Nicholas was born; and husband Ted had an affair, ending the marriage. Ariel, the result of unleashed power and anguish in the months leading up to her death, was published posthumously, containing pieces such as “Daddy,” crackling with rage, and pieces such as “Sheep in Fog,” fingering the world more gently. (Of course, she produced much more art, from short stories to pen-and-ink illustrations, essays to children’s stories — the archives are expansive.) For the last few months of her life, she lived with her two children in London, in a flat at 23 Fitzroy Road — the building that W. B. Yeats once inhabited.
Plath took her own life in February of 1963, at the age of thirty.
Society has mythologized and commercialized this woman and her suicide to no end. Ultimately, only Plath herself is the purest source of insight. She recorded her life, left traces — we learn that she eagerly consumed culture and loved films, going out to see countless things such as Carrie; The Passion of Joan of Arc; To Catch a Thief; Hiroshima, Mon Amour — not to mention plays, musicals, ballets, operas, and concerts. She revered Marilyn Monroe and Dylan Thomas alike. She was strongly against war from an early age. She took part in the Amateur Dramatics Club while in Cambridge.
Although Plath downed martinis with fellow Lowell seminar students Anne Sexton and George Starbuck at the Boston Ritz-Carlton, she took breaks from the company of artists and writers, saying in a 1962 interview, “But I must say what I admire most is the person who masters an area of practical experience, and can teach me something. I mean, my local midwife has taught me how to keep bees. Well, she can’t understand anything I write. And I find myself liking her, may I say, more than most poets. And among my friends I find people who know all about boats or know all about certain sports, or how to cut somebody open and remove an organ. I’m fascinated by this mastery of the practical. As a poet, one lives a bit on air.” Paradox is critical, ingrained in her selfhood. While creating the brilliant poems that would become Ariel, Plath would rise at around four in the morning and work until her children woke. She had a homemade Ouija board and enjoyed summoning spirits.
An early feminist caught in the constructs of society, Plath was constantly reckoning with her own femininity, constantly juggling the need to be a dutiful wife and mother (in the era of conformity) with a thirst to create and access the “blood jet.” In spite of the constraints as well as mental illness, Plath saw “Infinity in a grain of sand,” as she once wrote in a letter to her husband. She truly did live. Everything, from the sharp and colorful observations in her journals to the evolution of relationships contained in her diligent correspondence, reveals this vitality.
For so long I personally have wanted to write about her. I’ve been greedy and possessive, driving to coffee shops far away and poring over her journals in corners. My best friend told me about The Bell Jar early on in high school, and that started it all. A still-burning obsession. I’ve needed Plath as a friend, or sister perhaps, a voice to turn to that’s recognizable — uncannily so — yet ever-changing, leaving me in suspense. Yet the truth is, many readers have come to know — and need — a version of her.
Kendra Jones, former publisher of The York Review who graduated from YCP this past spring, said, “I first found Sylvia’s writing during a poetry workshop critique when Travis introduced me to Ariel … Being a female writer, I can’t say I’d read any female’s poetry before Travis introduced me to it. Her poetry has been the most meaningful to me regarding both personal experiences and how I emulate my own experiences through poetry. I feel her strong imagery, which is sometimes morbid, has also influenced the way I write nonfiction, which is most relevant to my current work. Two poems I always think of are ‘Crystal Gazer’ and ‘Tulips.’”
Meredith Jones, a student who’s majoring in Literary & Textual Studies, told me, “When I first stumbled upon Plath, my sister, actually, raved on and on about The Bell Jar. It was quite bizarre due to the fact my sister rarely reads… I was curious of what the novel had to offer. I have never been so moved by a piece of literature and possessed such feelings. Plath’s work speaks to so many women on different levels. I found “Daddy” as the most profound poem. I remember listening to her, on YouTube, recite it over and over again. Her voice is so melancholic, yet her words are powerful and impactful. The poem is such a statement to the shared experiences of generation after generation, where a woman feels disconnect or betrayal from the men in her life. Plath’s legacy, I am sure, will continue to the future, for she is timeless in her style and works.”
Plath had a way with words, yes — but also energy that we can connect to, viscerally, without a straight-forward explanation as to why. Perhaps it’s the brutal hurricane with seeming stillness at the center, “an origin story for pain itself,” as Anwen Crawford put it. Or perhaps it is that ominous rock-a-bye quality, anticipating or searching for something or someone, alone. In her essay “Ocean 1212-W,” Plath writes:
Breath, that is the first thing. Someone is breathing. My own breath? The breath of my mother? No, something else, something larger, farther, more serious, more weary. So behind shut lids I float awhile … Like a deep woman, it [the ocean] hid a good deal; it had many faces, many delicate, terrible, veils. It spoke of miracles and distances, if it could court, it could also kill. When I was learning to creep, my mother set me down on the beach to see what I thought of it. I crawled straight for the coming wave.
Perhaps it’s not what anyone writes that’s magic, but what we as individuals read. Sylvia Plath will always remain in our consciousness, her fierce courage bleeding into the work of artists ranging from daughter Frieda Hughes (whose poetry collection Out of Ashes came out in May), to the up-and-coming poet Rita Feinstein (whose debut chapbook Life on Dodge, described as a “contemporary radio signal to Plath and Sexton,” became available on October 30th). In a world where it can be intimidating to confess a painful experience, we turn to Plath’s voice, which she herself recognized as something “that will not be still.” And we will continue to revive, explore, and celebrate all that she was and is.
I had the honor of interviewing Peter K. Steinberg, the co-editor of the two-volume edition of The Letters of Sylvia Plath (2017/2018) and the co-author of These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath (2017). He’s written a biography on her as well as many other essays and articles over the years. An expert and archivist devoted to doing the reservoir that is Plath justice, he maintains the website A celebration, this is.
(To YCP students wishing to read The Letters of Plath — you can now check them out from Schmidt Library; they’re in the regular collection!)
EG: What drew you to Plath initially?
PS: I was taking an Introduction to Poetry course in college and we read “Lady Lazarus.” At the time it was one of the few poems that I felt “spoke” to me; at least the message of rebirth at the time was particularly poignant. When I asked my professor after class for more information on Plath he attempted to dissuade me from pursuing my interest. I had a more sympathetic friend who took me to the Plath books in my school’s library. 24 years later…
EG: Throughout your study of Plath’s life, writing, and art, what has surprised you the most about her?
PS: I continually try to learn and re-learn anything I can about Plath as I’ve never felt truly comfortable, or rather, satisfied with what I have studied, so am always revisiting things: her works, biographical details and the like. I think the most recent thing I’ve come away with is a general appreciation for how productive and industrious she was. She was professional from an early age and I find this truly fascinating and inspiring.
EG: What are some of the most illuminating things you’ve discovered about Plath while working on the letters specifically?
PS: Sometimes I found the pace of her life, on its own, to be exhausting! But through every single aspect of the letters project I was simply in awe of everything she did do; and in working so closely with each word of each letter, and investigating so much for the footnotes, I am left thinking that we are now finally beginning to understand who Sylvia Plath was as a person; as a writer. And through this understanding we will be able to appreciate her contributions to life, literature, and art in completely new ways. Tracking the books she read, the papers, poems, and prose she wrote, the boys she dated and to see this all develop, astonishingly fast, into her adulthood puts perspective into her actions. Particularly in Volume 2 you see her managing just about every aspect of her life, her husband’s, and her children’s with remarkable discipline and capability.
EG: Whether or not Plath intended for her journals and letters to ever have an audience beyond herself and the individuals with whom she corresponded, she still is being revived constantly; modern readers have the gift of her most intimate “written self” (or selves, perhaps). Are there certain practices or ethics to maintain as you continue to bring to light these archives?
PS: Plath was happy for her letters to family members to be shared in the family, though sometimes she requested information not be disseminated. There are some ethical practices to keep in mind when working on projects or dealing with archives; for example the first thing that comes to mind is sensitivity to living people and descendants along with other sorts of information that should or must be kept private. In a few instances in her letters I worked with people who knew Plath or were children of people who knew Plath and when necessary I would run information by to them to ascertain their comfort level with the details I sought to footnote.
EG: How does Plath’s identity/voice as a confessional poet stand out? And does this confessional mode of grappling with inner darkness and mental illness trickle into her other pursuits?
PS: At the risk of cheating here, I’d like to answer this with Plath’s own words: “I think my poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have, but I must say I cannot sympathize with these cries from the heart that are informed by nothing except a needle or a knife, or whatever it is. I believe that one should be able to control and manipulate experiences, even the most terrific, like madness, being tortured, this sort of experience, and one should be able to manipulate these experiences with an informed and an intelligent mind. I think that personal experience is very important, but certainly it shouldn’t be a kind of shut-box and mirror looking, narcissistic experience. I believe it should be relevant, and relevant to the larger things, the bigger things such as Hiroshima and Dachau and so on.” To answer your second query, the “inner darkness” manifests most successfully in her poetry (what she called in her journals “moments monuments”). I cannot “read” her artwork, for example, through this same lens. Most of her prose, though, a few stories and The Bell Jar are exceptions, naturally.
EG: How is Plath received around the world?
PS: Internationally Sylvia Plath is huge. At the respective Plath Symposiums (2002, 2007, 2012, 2017) people have flown from all over the world (China, Australia, most European countries, Brazil, Canada, and of course the US) to present papers. And because of the rise of websites like Amazon and Book Depository, it’s never been easier for books by and about Plath to cross seas and borders. Sylvia Plath is also still being translated; a major Spanish translation of her unabridged journals was recently published and it’s only a matter of time, too, before her letters are as well. While I am only on one platform, social media allows for even more exposure. It’s a truly exciting time to read Plath.
EG: How do we best celebrate Plath today and do her legacy justice?
PS: This might be an individual thing whereby I mean we’re each responsible for respecting and perpetuating Plath in a way that is beneficial and sustaining to us. And I think each new publication opens up the possibility to draw in more readers; and each course in high school or college can potentially reach more people still. And these are all great things.
Emily Goff is a junior majoring in Literary & Textual Studies and minoring in Creative Writing and French. From northern Virginia (but Michigan originally), she has always loved storytelling in various forms. Her poetry has been published in The York Review, NoVa Bards, and Bourgeon online; she’s also written for the newspaper The Spartan. This is her second semester of working for The York Review and her first semester of serving as the online editor. She loves tea and coffee equally, Sylvia Plath, indie rock, thrift stores, and cats.