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After Ted and Sylvia (Ronsdale $14.95)
Sylvia Plath famously committed suicide in 1963, the same year her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar was published. Vandals have repeatedly tried to erase her husband Ted Hughes' surname from her tombstone, blaming him for her death. Crystal Hurdle became fascinated with the couple's relationship after hearing Hughes read his poetry in Vancouver in 1993. He died in 1998.
Plath and Hughes met at Cambridge University and married in 1956. The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath, edited by Ted Hughes, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982; Hughes received the post of Britain's Poet Laureate two years later.
Hurdle's collection of poems called After Ted and Sylvia (Ronsdale $14.95) "forms a ménage a trois with the two poets"; to explore their love-torn relationship. Some of the poetry explores Ted and Sylvia's not so wonderful adventures after their deaths, when Hurdle imagines Sylvia Plath filled with rancour in the after-life.
By a fortuitous coincidence, there's a new movie out called Sylvia, in which Gwyneth Paltrow portrays Sylvia Plath. Filmed in Devon and Cornwall, the movie shows the American-born Plath as a sunny and carefree personality; not a tormented poet.
Feminists have long preferred to view Plath as the victim of a philandering husband who was indirectly responsible for Plath's horrible death-when she gassed herself in her oven while her children slept in the next room.
Hurdle, a self-confessed 'Plath and Hughes' addict, is now working on a poetry collection inspired by Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. 1-55380-010-9
[BCBW 2003]
Plath and Hughes met at Cambridge University and married in 1956. The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath, edited by Ted Hughes, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982; Hughes received the post of Britain's Poet Laureate two years later.
Hurdle's collection of poems called After Ted and Sylvia (Ronsdale $14.95) "forms a ménage a trois with the two poets"; to explore their love-torn relationship. Some of the poetry explores Ted and Sylvia's not so wonderful adventures after their deaths, when Hurdle imagines Sylvia Plath filled with rancour in the after-life.
By a fortuitous coincidence, there's a new movie out called Sylvia, in which Gwyneth Paltrow portrays Sylvia Plath. Filmed in Devon and Cornwall, the movie shows the American-born Plath as a sunny and carefree personality; not a tormented poet.
Feminists have long preferred to view Plath as the victim of a philandering husband who was indirectly responsible for Plath's horrible death-when she gassed herself in her oven while her children slept in the next room.
Hurdle, a self-confessed 'Plath and Hughes' addict, is now working on a poetry collection inspired by Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. 1-55380-010-9
[BCBW 2003]
Submitted on November 20, 2003 in By David.
