Your Own, Sylvia Read online

  What an inspired idea—to tell the story of a brilliant poet's life through a series of brilliant poems!

  Hemphill's poetry radiates with passion, taking us on a harrowing journey deep into the heart of Plath's darkness. This beautiful book leaves us uplifted, knowing that despite the tragedy that befell her, Plath's words will live on after her to “do some good … save someone lost.”

  —Sonya Sones, author of What My Mother Doesn't Know and Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy

  This book, although based on real events and real people,

  is first and foremost a work of fiction. It consists largely of verse,

  conversations, and descriptions that are fictional, although attributed

  to real people as imagined and interpreted by the author.

  for Cecile Goyette

  and all those who love

  or come to love Sylvia Plath

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Steve for having the vision to connect me to this project and for rekindling my love of Plath. Thanks to Adam for challenging me to expect more of myself and for his guidance with this book. Thanks to Jim for being my first reader and always my best advocate. Thanks to Jack Lienke, without whose help in acquiring photographs and digging up difficult details of research Your Own, Sylvia would be incomplete. I am also very grateful to Karen Kukil and the Smith Collection and to Professor Sylvia Vardell of Texas Women's University.

  Owning Sylvia Plath

  A Reader

  Spring 2007

  If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.

  You leave the same impression

  Of something beautiful, but annihilating.

  —from “The Rival” by Sylvia Plath

  Who are you, Sylvia Plath?

  A cold comet locked in place by gravity?

  A glint in the cracked ceiling above my bed?

  Something shimmers out of your chasm.

  Your language feels like words

  trapped under my tongue

  that I can't quite spit out on my own.

  Readers tremble over your pages,

  believe you spell out

  letter by letter

  the words of their hearts.

  What's your secret, Sylvia?

  Are you the moon?

  Or have you become bigger than that?

  Are you the sun?

  And I wonder,

  who can possess the stuff of the sky?

  Can I?

  Sylvia Plath signed many letters she wrote to her mother “Your own, Sivvy.”

  “The Rival” appears in Plath's famous poetry collection, Ariel.

  Dearest, Darling, First Born

  Aurelia Plath, Sylvia's mother

  October 27, 1932

  Child of sea and sand,

  your face is mine

  but you will be tall

  with the dark eyes of your father.

  When you cry

  I will rock you and rhyme you,

  feed you milk of my breast,

  give you my diligence, my contract of love.

  Big beautiful Sivvy,

  we are alone in this hospital.

  Grow accustomed

  to the antiseptic white.

  My baby, my duty,

  I will rear you right.

  Give you everything, buttons off my shirt.

  You will be what I cannot.

  Sylvia Plath was born in Boston on October 27, 1932, the first child of Otto Emil Plath, a professor of German and biology at Boston University (age forty-six), and Aurelia Schober Plath (age twenty-five). Sylvia's lifelong family nickname was Sivvy.

  Aurelia Schober Plath graduated valedictorian of the 1928 class of Boston University, College of Practical Arts and Letters. Aurelia wanted to be a writer but could not face her father's disapproval.

  Beekeeper, Penny-Pincher, Professor, Master of the House

  Otto Plath, Sylvia's father

  Circa 1936

  If I do things best

  why invite others in

  to clutter my desk?

  Why waste my nights

  of valuable book study

  with idle dinner prattle

  or tucking the children into bed?

  My daughter understands this

  better than my wife—

  fills her brain

  with insect species, bits of verse,

  beach sand. She dances well

  and I applaud, then shoo her

  upstairs to her mother's care.

  I expect Sylvia to grow tall,

  fill her palms with the mud

  and mystery of the world—

  fireflies and sparrows

  darting across her sky.

  I will observe her, set her right,

  but never coddle her.

  My old arms

  have the strength to carry

  papers, not children.

  I am the long-reigning queen bee,

  Aurelia, Sylvia, and Warren,

  my workers, buzz as I dictate,

  store my honey, keep the comb clean.

  When I perish,

  a new queen

  will lead this little hive,

  but until then

  the house, wife, and children

  conform to the direction

  of my wings.

  Warren Plath, Sylvia's brother, was born on April 27, 1935; in 1936 he would have been one year old.

  Edward Butscher, in his book Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness, asserts, “For Sylvia Plath, even as the most casual reading of her poetry demonstrates, the central obsession from the beginning to the end of her life was her father, Otto Emil Plath. His life and, more importantly, his death, nine days after [Sylvia's] eighth birthday, left an imprint upon her imagination that time did not soften.”

  Sylvia's journals often compare and contrast Ted Hughes, her husband, with her father. Her famous poem “Daddy” is a good example of this.

  The Day She Learned to Swim

  Marian Freeman, a neighbor, Aurelia's friend

  Spring 1937

  Sylvia's little footprints

  crisscross the sand

  like lines to a treasure map.

  She leads David, Ruth, and Warren

  hunting crabs and shells, filling

  pails with green sea glass.

  She's so much a part of the ocean,

  Sylvia's skin tans brown as the beach sand,

  her curled, fourteen-karat hair

  blazes like the noon sky.

  Four years old and clearly

  the sun in her mother's eye,

  giving light to the moon rock

  Aurelia has become.

  I love them both, ache like Sylvia

  is my own when she wades beyond

  the sand bar and slips

  under the water's edge,

  her hands flailing, frantic

  above the surface.

  Aurelia and I tear off

  the beach blanket,

  knees deep in the tides

  when Sylvia bobs forward,

  her arms paddling

  like fins, her head

  triumphant above water—

  already a mermaiden,

  a sea nymph

  cresting the wave.

  The Plaths lived in Winthrop, Massachusetts, at 92 Johnson Avenue at this time.

  Hurricane

  Aurelia Plath

  September 21, 1938

  I sing to Sivvy and Warren,

  hide them under my breast

  while winds roar and water

  seeps into the house.

  Telephone poles snap.

  I whisper fairy stories,

  light verse
into their ears

  so that the memory of this

  night will be melodic,

  not nature's tantrum.

  Sylvia clenches my hand.

  She breathes my stories in,

  her lips open like she's ready

  to speak her own.

  In September 1938 a major hurricane ripped through the Boston area. Winthrop, the city's easternmost suburb, was hit the hardest. Sylvia writes about this storm in her poem “The Disquieting Muses.”

  Point Shirley

  Grammy Schober, Sylvia's maternal grandmother

  1939

  The Atlantic licks our back porch.

  Its frothy foam salts my tomato

  and rhubarb plants.

  Across the street Boston Harbor stills,

  purrs quiet as a sleeping cat

  until the wind stirs it.

  Grampy mortared a seawall

  around our modest summer castle,

  held back last year's hurricane.

  Sivvy, my little grandbaby,

  collects broken starfish in my jam jars,

  feeds the creatures until they sprout new legs,

  then chucks them back to sea.

  I tell her we must pack up,

  the renters arrive tomorrow.

  I fib that the beach down the road

  is just as nice as Point Shirley.

  “But, Grammy, I feel safe here,” she says.

  I remove her hand from the ocean,

  brush off her sandy feet,

  and set floral stationery in front of her.

  I point at the paper, tell her to write her mother a letter.

  She must learn to love indoor activities too.

  Sylvia picks up her pen.

  Sylvia's grandparents still lived in the house Sylvia's mother, Aurelia, grew up in, 892 Shirley Street, a beach house on the southeasternmost tip of the peninsula Point Shirley in Massachusetts. They rented out the house in the summer and then permanently sold the house shortly after Sylvia's father died.

  Losing a Limb

  Specialist Dr. Harvey Loder

  1940

  Otto's leg vermilion,

  toe enlarged and unhealed

  after a simple bump,

  Mrs. Plath looked shocked

  at my diagnosis—

  diabetes.

  Could have been prevented,

  all this suffering,

  had the professor

  ever

  seen me.

  I hate to tell a woman

  she will likely be a widow at thirty-three.

  Aurelia stares at me

  with determined, red eyes,

  too proud to cry.

  for such a brilliant man

  Otto was stupid about his health.

  An expert in biology,

  with a family history of diabetes

  and an addict's sweet tooth,

  Mr. Plath

  should have read the signs.

  I guess stubbornness

  is also a dominant trait.

  Those poor little kids.

  Aurelia straightens her hat,

  slips on gloves, leaves

  my office with a polite,

  tight-lipped “Thank you, Doctor,”

  a ghost of the wife who entered.

  Otto had never gone to a doctor until 1940, when he stubbed his toe and it turned purplish-black. He was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. Otto had been suffering from diabetes symptoms for ten years, and by the time his illness was diagnosed it was life-threatening. Gangrene set in and his leg was amputated in October 1940. In the end bronchopneumonia and an embolism killed him. Treatment for diabetes in 1940 consisted of dietary restrictions and insulin shots—both of which Otto rigorously applied, but too late to undo the damage.

  Mother's Strength

  Aurelia Plath

  1940

  A legless father

  hobbled into bed is one thing.

  My dears will not see

  their father coffined, lowered

  into the stiff November ground.

  Marian holds their hands.

  I wave to Sivvy and Warren,

  suck in my tears until the hearse

  door closes. What will we do?

  How will we survive?

  These questions stream

  down my face. I can't pat them away

  with his monogrammed hankie.

  Sivvy raged,

  “I'm never talking to God again,”

  when I told her

  that her daddy had died.

  She's fatherless and faithless—

  I must remain solid for her,

  provide her the tools

  she needs to believe.

  Otto Plath died in the hospital at 9:35 p.m. on November 5, 1940. Sylvia was eight and Warren was five and a half. Prior to her marriage, Aurelia had worked in a public library and for an insurance company, and had taught English and German at Brookline High School. When they married on January 4, 1932, Otto insisted that Aurelia quit working and become a full-time housewife and mother.

  First Publication

  Editor of the Boston Herald

  1941

  “Hey, Mickey, this ‘Poem’

  from an eight-year-old girl's pretty good,

  starts out, ‘Hear the crickets chirping,’

  and she chirps she has plenty more

  where this one came from.”

  Mickey scratches his bald spot,

  “Nothing but stalled cars

  and weather this edition.

  What the heck, print her little poem.”

  Joe nods,

  “What's the byline, Mickey?”

  “Says her name's Sylvia Plath,

  thinks she's gonna be a star.”

  “Poem,” a sweet rhyming verse about crickets and fireflies, appeared in the Sunday Boston Herald on August 11, 1941, on the “Good Sport Page” of the children's section.

  Maître d'Hôtel

  Grampy Schober, Sylvia's maternal grandfather

  Summer 1942

  I keep my hands in my jacket pockets,

  poke a finger through the hole

  Grammy will stitch.

  No coins, no peppermint sticks

  for my grandbabies. I magnify

  the paper, search for work that doesn't exist.

  But as the boys and bombs fall overseas, I polish

  my shoes. Newly hired to be maître d'hôtel,

  I live my weeks away

  from my family, board

  with the fancies and the frivolous

  at the Brookline Country Club.

  At least the Christmas tree

  will bear boxes and chocolates this year.

  The little ones' patched stockings full of loot.

  I hold my tongue at work.

  German accents are

  like leper scars. I nod my head.

  I am good at taking care of others.

  Still, I hoped at this age someone

  would take care of me,

  that I would lounge seaside,

  my feet cool on the sand, not crammed

  for ten-hour shifts in pinching shoes.

  For thirty years Frank Schober, Sylvia's “Grampy,” worked as an accountant at Dorothy Muriel Company. He lost his job just after Christmas in 1940, only a couple of months after Otto's death. Because money was tight for everyone, in early 1941 Aurelia asked her parents and brother to move into her home to help share expenses. Grampy was hired in the summer of 1942 to work at the Brookline Country Club, which was located in a wealthy Boston suburb.

  Outpatient

  Aunt Dorothy, Sylvia's maternal aunt

  February 1943

  My sister recovers

  in my guest room

  from a life that ulcerates her.

  She swells acidic carrying

  two children, a checkbook,

  and a household on her shoulders.

  Our parents help, but age
/>
  weighs them down.

  Sylvia treads words to keep afloat,

  all those library books, journals,

  daily letters penned to her mother.

  Sylvia writes more in a day

  than I do in a month. My sister,

  hand cradling her gut, pencil shaky

  from sedation, scrawls on her stationery,

  tries to keep pace with her daughter.

  When Sylvia was ten, Aurelia suffered an acute gastric hemorrhage.

  Aurelia kept Sylvia's letters in packets. She always intended to give them back to her someday.

  Selfish

  Warren Plath, Sylvia's brother

  1942-1943

  Mommy gave Sylvia

  a blue cloth book

  without words

  where Sylvia puts words

  each day.

  I ask her what stories

  are in there,

  but Sivvy shakes her head,

  locks the book under her bed,

  says that the words are hers,

  that the stories are her thoughts,

  that the book is called a journal.

  I tell Sivvy that I want one too.

  I have lots to say.

  She says, “No, you don't.

  You're too little to say anything

  important.”

  Mean, mean, mean,

  I think under my breath.

  When Warren was born, Sylvia said, “I wanted an Evelyn, not a Warren.” According to Aurelia in her introduction to Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963, “Between Sylvia and Warren there were often arguments just for the sake of discussion.” Sylvia teased her brother and yet they were very close. Warren appreciated Sylvia's writing and artwork, and this led to an enduring friendship. Both children were excellent students, highly praised and highly competitive. Both left their marks.

  Best Friend

  Betsy Powley, Sylvia's best friend in grade school

  1943

  Camps, fern huts, Girl Scout cookies,

  suntans on my driveway,

  Sylvia and I never stop. We travel

  the globe in our backyard.

  She books away to foreign lands,

  ancient times, and I

  trot beside her—

  Tonto to her Lone Ranger.

  I whisper that I have a crush