Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘One Art’ Scores a -2.50305521472 June 6, 2013: Turns out, in the literary death match between Sylvia Plath and Elizabeth Bishop, it's Plath all the way! Or, that's to say, Plath's poem "Edge" (which scored a 1.42302654867) is closer to the "professional" end of the spectrum according to the Poetry Assessor, an application created by an Australian team of computational linguists to quantify [...] by Harriet Staff

Sylvia Plath’s ‘Sheep in Fog’ Drafts to Be Sold May 6, 2013: In the latest Sylvia Plath news, ArtDaily reports that the complete working papers for Plath's "Sheep in Fog" poem are to be sold on May 8th for a sum between £30,000-35,000. That is certainly a lot of weight for a single draft, but as the article reports, the drafts "provide a vivid and detailed insight into the fragility of the poet’s [...] by Harriet Staff

Dark Places (Part Two) April 30, 2013: The easy part was posting other people’s answers to the question: “Why Do You Write?” in Part One. Now comes the tricky part: answering the question myself. One of the first poems I ever wrote, at age 5, went like this: I like crackers I like bread Because they’re both dead The companion piece to that poem was [...] by Laura Sims

The Poetry of Our Youth April 25, 2013: Why can’t I hear the music of my youth with objectivity? I really don’t know if The Unforgettable Fire is a great album or not because I loved U2 so ardently in high school that the profound and sticky wistfulness of unfulfilled teenage desire roars back to life at each listening. Of course, many songs I still like from that time I know [...] by Camille Guthrie

The Handwritten Track Lists of Sylvia Plath March 8, 2013: Over at the Houghton Library Blog, there's a fascinating analysis of Sylvia Plath's handwritten track-lists from her 1958 and 1959 recordings. The recordings and track-lists are especially interesting because they pre-date the publication of The Colossus, her first collection, by two years: In Plath’s penmanship, particularly as it appears [...] by Harriet Staff

The Search for Sylvia Plath’s Obituary February 12, 2013: The Atlantic's Ashley Fetters went looking for an obituary for Sylvia Plath, who committed suicide 50 years ago this week, but was surprised to find... none. Fetters writes: At the time of her death by suicide—50 years ago, on February 11, 1963—she was a published novelist and an acclaimed poet; beyond that, she was also a [...] by Harriet Staff

Lena Dunham, Jacqueline Rose, and Other Writers Think of Sylvia February 11, 2013: Today marks the 50th anniversary of Sylvia Plath's suicide, and at The Guardian, several poets and writers have reflected on The Bell Jar: "My focus through most of college was 'confessional female poets' with an emphasis on those who had committed suicide," writes Lena Dunham. Huh! Sharon Olds, Jennifer Egan, Jeanette Winterson, Jacqueline [...] by Harriet Staff

Misguided Cover for Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar Inspires Parodies February 4, 2013: We recently covered all the covers for Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar--and you must've seen the UK revamp for the 50th-anniversary edition (up top, to the right of Shirley Tucker's original design). Well, Faber's chick-lit face for the novel has inspired 1) much argument, with The Independent calling it "an insult to women everywhere," and 2) [...] by Harriet Staff

A Visual History of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar January 14, 2013: In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Flavorwire has compiled a collection of the book's diverse covers through the years. We're drawn to the sparsity of the 1963 Heinemann First Edition, with its ghostly imagery and bright-pink block lettering; as well as the romance novel–esque cover of the 1972 Bantam [...] by Harriet Staff

Having Martinis with Plath and Sexton January 3, 2013: The holidays came and went, and in the flurry of eggnog and balls dropping, we missed this item over at This Recording. Emily Rosenberg writes about finding affinities rather than strife between Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, calling their relationship "an angry symbiosis." Rosenberg gives some biographical background on the relationship [...] by Harriet Staff