Crossing Paths with the Spirit of Sylvia Plath – Helen Humphreys

 
“... Before I went to Britain, I had devoured Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Ariel. I especially loved the poetry, with its sharpness and candor, and so, when Plath’s Collected Poems were first published, I skipped writing for the day and made the one-hour train journey to London to buy a copy. I read the poems slowly and often out loud, saying the words over and over again, like a spell, to ward off the four p.m. darkness, the winter, the acute loneliness. I came to know the poems intimately. The words drilled their way into my brain, and even now, I can quote large sections of them from memory. I finished Plath’s book and my own. ...”

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