By Lizzy Barthelemy

“I blissfully succumbed to the whirling blackness that I honestly believed was eternal

oblivion.”

Life

Born in 1932 to middle class parents in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts Published her first poem in the Boston Herald's children's section at

8 years old She won a scholarship to Smith College in 1950 Deeply depressed and tried committing suicide in 1953 after

receiving electroconvulsive therapy Spent about 6 months in a psychiatric hospital Obtained a Fulbright scholarship to Newnham College in Cambridge,

England Committed suicide in 1963 by sticking her head in her oven

Family

Her mother, Aurelia Schober Plath, was a first-generation American of Austrian descent and a teacher

Plath's father was an entomologist and a professor of biology and German at Boston University, but he passed away from diabetes complications in 1940 when Sylvia was only 8

Married Ted Hughes in 1956 then divorced in 1962 Gave birth to Frieda and Nicholas Hughes in 1960 and

1962

Interesting Facts

In the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, Julia Stiles is reading Sylvia Plath’s book “The Bell Jar”

Interesting Facts (cont.)

Only Colossus was published while she was alive She was the first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize after

death (Collected Poems)

At twelve, her IQ was recorded at around 160 She was encouraged by her mother to journal

details of her everyday life She left a note for her neighbor to call the doctor

when he would find her with her head in the oven

Poetic Style

Considered to be "at once confessional, lyrical, and symbolic”

Unique uses of rhythm, meter, and characterization

Often uses doubling (ex. "She comes and goes." to She "comes." She "goes.”)

Graphic person and nature-based imagery

Themes

Prevailing themes of feminist criticism Often depressing and sad due to the death of

her father when she was 8 Her poems were often called “madness” and

she was called “crazy” Often wrote about death, redemption and

resurrection

“Mirror”I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

I am not cruel, only truthful‚ The eye of a little god, four-cornered.

Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so

long I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is.

Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.

I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of

hands.I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the

darkness.In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a

terrible fish.

“Poppies in July”

Little poppies, little hell flames, Do you do no harm?

You flicker. I cannot touch you. I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns

And it exhausts me to watch you Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.

A mouth just bloodied. Little bloody skirts!

There are fumes I cannot touch. Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?

If I could bleed, or sleep! If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!

Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule, Dulling and stilling.

But colorless. Colorless.

“Daddy”

“Daddy”