Sylvia+Plath

Isabelle T 



Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, in Massachusetts, during the time of the Great Depression. Her mother was a first- generation American, from Australian descent. Plath’s father, Otto Plath, died a week and a half after her eighth birthday. In 1950, Plath attended Smith College. She edited //The Smith Review// and after her third year of college received an opportunity to be guest editor of the //Mademoiselle// magazine, and spent a month in New York City on the job. Plath graduated from Smith with honors. Afterwards, she received a scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she continued to write poetry that would be published in her school newspaper.

On June 16, 1956 Plath married Ted Hughes, also a poet. However, Plath discovered that her husband had been having an affair. She became very depressed and attempted suicide multiple times. After they broke up Plath experienced an explosion of creativity. Most of the poems she wrote during this time are the ones she is most famous for today. One of her most famous works of poetry is a collection entitled //Ariel.//

Plath’s depression was never taken care of completely, and on February 11, 1963, she took her own life and died from carbon monoxide poisoning. She was 30 years old. But, her works of poetry are still studied today, and her gravesite in Yorkshire is visited every year by hundreds of people.

Kindness
By: Sylvia Plath

Kindness glides about my house. Dame Kindness, she is so nice! The blue and red jewels of her rings smoke In the windows, the mirrors Are filling with smiles. What is so real as the cry of a child? A rabbit's cry may be wilder But it has no soul. Sugar can cure everything, so Kindness says. Sugar is a necessary fluid, Its crystals a little poultice. O kindness, kindness Sweetly picking up pieces! My Japanese silks, desperate butterflies, May be pinned any minute, anesthetized. And here you come, with a cup of tea Wreathed in steam. The blood jet is poetry, There is no stopping it. You hand me two children, two roses.