Richie's Picks: YOUR OWN, SYLVIA: A VERSE PORTRAIT OF SYLVIA PLATH by
Stephanie Hemphill, Alfred A. Knopf, March 2007. ISBN: 0-385-83799-9; Lib. ISBN:
0-375-93799-6.
"April 24, 2007 NEW YORK -- Julia Stiles is to star in and produce the film
version of the semi-autobiographical Sylvia Plath novel 'The Bell Jar'."
All I'd previously known of Sylvia Plath was that she'd been a poet who'd
written THE BELL JAR and had committed suicide. All I knew of Ted Hughes is
that he wrote poems for adults that I'd never read and THE IRON GIANT which I'd
really enjoyed reading. I was not aware of Plath and Hughes having been
married.
I know much, much more about them now.
"Madness
Dr. Ruth Barnhouse Beuscher, Sylvia's therapist
Fall 1953
"Repression cuts off
circulation like a tourniquet,
and Sylvia throbs with desire.
"I advise Sylvia to experiment,
to stop fretting over a white
wedding dress. Does this shock
the patient? Not really.
Sylvia has been slicing at her arm,
waiting for someone
to grant her permission.
"A junior in college,
she may be ready for this.
'But what would Mother think?'
Sylvia snickers. She wraps a mink stole
of secrets around her shoulders,
luxuriates in playing foul
behind her mother's back.
"Perhaps when she holds back
her desires, her mind
splinters into madness, into deadwood
that we must burn away by electric shock.
I encourage her to release her idea
of the bad girl, punishable for physical contact.
"I ask her to think about herself, not her mother,
about how Sylvia represses Sylvia.
I want to tell her to do what she wants.
I need to help her to let go of her fears."
"Dr. Ruth met with Sylvia for daily psychotherapy sessions, during which
Ruth explained to Sylvia her methods and techniques and why she was using them.
Sylvia responded well to this sort of inclusion and respect. Dr. Barnhouse
Beuscher employed fairly orthodox Freudianism, which entailed leading
analysis and discussion about Sylvia's childhood. At the time of the above poem,
Sylvia and Dr. Ruth met at McLean Hospital for inpatient treatment, but later
they would have sessions at Dr, Beuscher's private practice. They were in
contact via phone, letters, or in person every week until Sylvia's death ten
years later."
Through inclusion of a book-long series of artistic images, the creators of
a graphic novel provide readers with a second dimension -- a visual dimension
-- to a story that is also being told with words. In those cases where the
images work harmoniously with the text to create an exceptional graphic
novel, the reader experiences a piece of literature that is greater in its impact
than the sum of its textual and visual elements.
In crafting YOUR OWN, SYLVIA, a striking portrait of the poet who took her
own life at an early age nearly half a century ago, author Stephanie Hemphill
has similarly provided a second dimension. That second dimension in this
case is not visual but textual.
Some may believe that Hemphill's poems, which are conveying the story on one
level, constitute the second dimension that adds depth to the factual
information appearing throughout the book. Others would propose that, on the
contrary, the factual information is the dimension that supplements the poems
which are written with the guidance of primary source materials and from the
points of view of an amazingly large cast of family members, friends,
colleagues, and mental health professionals who knew this a poet who, like a
shooting
star, burned brightly and was then gone.
What cannot be argued is that, like a graphic novel done to perfection, the
author has intertwined these two integral textual dimensions of the story in
a manner that makes this portrait of Sylvia Plath consistently intriguing and
compelling with all the power and edge of the best tragic, contemporary
verse novel.
In fact, there are events within this tale that are so horrific that it is
sometimes necessary to remind oneself that they took place in the real world.
Interspersed with the poems from the various points of view are several
which are co-titled "Imagining Sylvia Plath," and are each written in the style
of one of Sylvia's better-known poems.
"...She blocks Ted out, the rake, her children's
Unfaithful father, invisible as the man who draws
The stage curtain, who ties up the show.
She doesn't need him
To tell her when to begin, when to end.
"Poetry taps beat after beat
From her typewriter keys.
She studies the page, astonished
At her maniac poems, buzzing real as an ear.
She cannot send them back.
"She cannot remember writing them down.
She can only remember the way
The words felt, honest as a morning moon.
And she is their creator,
Standing alone in her laurel crown.
"She escapes this way.
Her early-morning pen
Breaks the kill hours, cleanses her in blood,
Burns the wrinkles from her face.
She radiates language.
"She will not be shut up, will not be eclipsed."
Sure, at times it is like staring in fascination at a terrible accident
happening in slow motion, but there is no question that YOUR OWN, SYLVIA will be
responsible for bringing the words of Sylvia Plath to the attention of a new
generation. It is a haunting and true story that certainly grabbed and held
my attention.
Richie Partington
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
Moderator, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks
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