#the letters of Sylvia plath volume 1 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lovingsylvia · 10 months

Photo

!NEW RELEASE!

Title: Sylvia Plath Day by Day, Volume 1: 1932-1955

Author: Carl Rollyson

Publication date: 15 August 2023

Pages: 400

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (UPM)

Image source (cover & description): https://www.upress.state.ms.us

About the book:

“A fascinating investigation into the life and art of one of America’s greatest poets

Since Sylvia Plath’s death in 1963, she has become the subject of a constant stream of books, biographies, and articles. She has been hailed as a groundbreaking poet for her starkly beautiful poems in Ariel and as a brilliant forerunner of the feminist coming-of-age novel in her semiautobiographical The Bell Jar. Each new biography has offered insight and sources with which to measure Plath’s life and influence. Sylvia Plath Day by Day, a two-volume series, offers a distillation of this data without the inherent bias of a narrative.

Volume 1 commences with Plath’s birth in Boston in 1932, records her response to her elementary and high school years, her entry into Smith College, and her breakdown and suicide attempt, and ends on February 14, 1955, the day she wrote to Ruth Cohen, principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, to accept admission as an “affiliated student at Newnham College to read for the English Tripos.”

Sylvia Plath Day by Day is for readers of all kinds with a wide variety of interests in the woman and her work. The entries are suitable for dipping into and can be read in a minute or an hour. Ranging over several sources, including Plath’s diaries, journals, letters, stories, and other prose and poetry—including new material and archived material rarely seen by readers—a fresh kaleidoscopic view of the writer emerges.

Reviews

"The details in Rollyson’s Sylvia Plath Day by Day, Volume 1: 1932–1955 are a dream come true for the reader, fan, and scholar of Sylvia Plath. The seeds of so much of her creative writing are present, but Rollyson deftly does not foreshadow how events impact Plath’s life and when she transforms experiences from life to art. He lets each moment stand on its own importance."

"Sylvia Plath Day by Day, Volume 1: 1932–1955 is a must-have book for any reader interested in Plath. Detailed yet highly readable, it paints a portrait of a young woman who would become, as will be chronicled in volume 2, one of the seminal authors in the twentieth century."

"Sylvia Plath Day by Day, Volume 1: 1932–1955 fills the lacunae of existing biographies and uncovers new insights into its subject, as when Plath writes about her experiences at Smith, hearing ‘nasty little tag ends of conversation directed at you and around you, meant for you, to strangle you on the invisible noose of insinuation.’ Or her months in New York at Mademoiselle, which grow less mysterious here. Again, Carl Rollyson has provided us with an indispensable book on Sylvia Plath." “

You can order the book through their website or from other online shops.

#sylvia plath #new release #carl rollyson #sylvia plath day by day #sylviaplath #sylvia plath scholarship #university press of mississippi

28 notes · View notes

natreads · 4 months

Text

2023 reading wrap up

I read 45 books this year, including one for work. I don't typically include those but I was working with the translation of a book and so it had technically already come out so I decided to put it on Goodreads. I have however not included it in this wrapup, so there's only 44 of them here.

Classics (8) 1 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 - ⭐⭐⭐

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (reread) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (queer, reread) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (e, childrens) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Grey Woman by Elizabeth Gaskell (au) ⭐⭐⭐

Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion (modern) ⭐⭐⭐

The House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera ⭐⭐⭐

Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz (modern) ⭐⭐⭐

Teleny by Anonymous (queer) ⭐⭐⭐

Poetry (4) 1 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1 - ⭐⭐⭐

Dancing in Odessa by Ilya Kaminsky (e) ⭐⭐⭐

Closer Baby Closer by Savannah Brown (e) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Carrying by Ada Limón (au/ph) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Things You May Find Hidden In My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha (e) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Romance (2) 1 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1 - ⭐⭐⭐

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn (au) ⭐⭐⭐

Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston (reread, queer) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Non-fiction (10) 3 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2 - ⭐⭐⭐

Letters to Camondo by Edmund De Waal ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Det är natten by Karolina Ramqvist (sv, e) ⭐⭐⭐

En bok av dagar by Patti Smith (tr) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Kind of Magic by Luke Edward Hall ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Blir du ledsen om jag dör? by Nicolas Lunabba (sv) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Krigsdagböcker by Astrid Lindgren (sv) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Dagbok från 20-talet by Nicolas Lunabba (sv) ⭐⭐⭐

The Forster Cavafy Letters edited by Peter Jeffreys ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Greco Disco by Luke Edward Hall ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Fantasy (1) 1 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (au, ph) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Contemporary (19) 1 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 8 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 9 - ⭐⭐⭐

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin (queer, au) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Kärlek i Seoul by Sang Young Park (queer, tr, au) ⭐⭐⭐

Andromeda by Therese Bohman (sv) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Min Far by Annie Ernaux (tr) ⭐⭐⭐

Göra sig kvitt Eddy Bellegueule Édouard Louis (queer, tr) ⭐⭐⭐

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (au) ⭐⭐⭐

After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz (queer) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Babetta by Nina Wähä (au, sv) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

My Policeman by Bethan Roberts (queer) ⭐⭐⭐

Rumple Buttercup by Matthew Gray Gubler (e, childrens) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Aftonland by Therese Bohman (sv) ⭐⭐⭐

Om uträkning av omfång 1 by Solvej Balle (tr, au) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Adventures of the Seven Christmas Cards by Anthony Horowitz (au) ⭐⭐⭐

Vinternoveller by Ingvild H. Rishøi (tr) ⭐⭐⭐

Heartstopper volume 5 by Alice Oseman (queer, YA) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Stargate by Ingvild H. Rishøi (tr, au) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

In the Absence of Men by Philippe Besson (queer, tr) ⭐⭐⭐

Saint Sebastian’s Abyss by Mark Haber (au) ⭐⭐⭐

Additional info and stats under the cut:

e = ebook au = audiobook ph = physical (only used when I alternated between the audiobook and the physical copy) tr = translated sv = originally in Swedish

Childrens - 2

YA - 1

Middle grade - 1

Graphic novel - 1

Modern classics - 2

Translated - 8 (Korean, English, French x3, Danish x1, Norwegian x2)

Swedish - 7

Audio - 12

E-book - 6

Rereads - 3

Queer - 8

5 stars - 7

4 stars - 18

3 stars - 19

Owned - 30 + bought 1 as e-book)

Unhauled after reading - 8

#nat talks #2023 reading wrap up #long post

9 notes · View notes

gennsoup · 3 months

Text

…in March I'll be rested, caught up, and human.

Sylvia Plath, The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1: 1940-1956 (To Aurelia Schober Plath, Monday 2 February 1953)

#Sylvia Plath #letters #March #hopefully #rest #rested #human #mental health #mental health quotes #caught up #American literature #quotes #quotes blog #literary quotes #literature quotes #literature #book quotes

3 notes · View notes

emilysworldoffandoms · 1 year

Text

Books I Read in 2022

1. Beast Boy Loves Raven By Kami Garcia & Gabriel Picolo 2. Dear Girl By Aija Mayrock 3. A Fire Like You By Upile Chisala 4. Nectar By Upile Chisala 5. Soft Magic By Upile Chisala 6. As If On Cue By Marisa Kanter 7. Heartstopper Volume 4 By Alice Oseman 8. Address Unknown By Katherine Kressmann Taylor 9. Ariel By Sylvia Plath 10. Heart Talk By Cleo Wade 11. At Somerton: Cinders & Sapphires By Leila Rasheed 12. At Somerton: Diamonds & Deceit By Leila Rasheed 13. Unlock Your Storybook Heart By Amanda Lovelace 14. Instructions for Dancing By Nicola Yoon 15. Martita, I Remember You By Sandra Cisneros 16. Brown Girls By Daphne Palasi Andreades 17. Here's to Us By Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera 18. Counting by 7s By Holly Goldberg Sloan 19. The Summer I Turned Pretty By Jenny Han 20. It's Not Summer Without You By Jenny Han 21. We'll Always Have Summer By Jenny Han 22. Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood By Melissa Wagner & Fred Rogers 23. Gained a Daughter But Nearly Lost My Mind: How I Planned a Backyard Wedding During a Pandemic By Marlene Kern Fischer 24. At Somerton: Emeralds & Ashes By Leila Rasheed 25. Café Con Lychee By Emery Lee 26. The Book Tour By Andi Watson 27. God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian By Kurt Vonnegut 28. Yoga Pant Nation By Laurie Gelman 29. Mr. Malcolm's List By Suzanne Allain 30. Miss Lattimore's Letter By Suzanne Allain 31. The Road Between By Courtney Peppernell 32. Enough Rope By Dorothy Parker 33. My Favorite Half-Night Stand By Christina Lauren 34. Smells Like Tween Spirit By Laurie Gelman 35. How to Be a Wallflower By Eloisa James 36. Be Like the Moon By Levi Welton 37. Morality for Muggles: Ethics in the Bible and the World of Harry Potter By Moshe Rosenberg 38. 84, Charing Cross Road By Helene Hanff 39. Josh & Hazel's Guide to Not Dating By Christina Lauren 40. The Matchmaker By Thornton Wilder 41. The Cheat Sheet By Sarah Adams 42. All-of-a-Kind Family By Sydney Taylor (Re-read) 43. Shadow Angel Book One By Leia Stone & Julie Hall 44. Spooky America: The Ghostly Tales of Sleepy Hollow By Jessa Dean 45. Needle & Thread By David Pinckney, Ennun Ana Iurov, Micah Myers 46. Good Game, Well Played By Rachael Smith, Katherine Lobo, Justin Birch 47. Home Sick Pilots By Dan Walters & Caspar Wijngaard 48. Beyond the Wand: The Magic & Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard By Tom Felton 49. Legends and Lore of Sleepy Hollow and the Hudson Valley By Jonathan Kruk 50. Heartless Prince By Leigh Dragoon 51. A Contract with God By Will Eisner 52. Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American By Laura Gao 53. Blackwater By Jeannette Arroyo and Ren Graham 54. Woman World By Aminder Dhaliwal 55. In Real Life By Cory Doctorow & Jen Wang 56. Lore Olympus Volume 1 By Rachel Smythe 57. Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword By Barry Deutsch 58. Persuasion By Jane Austen 59. Devil in Disguise By Lisa Kleypas 60. Shadow Angel Book Two By Leia Stone & Julie Hall 61. Lore Olympus Volume 2 By Rachel Smythe 62. Talk to My Back By Yamada Murasaki 63. How I Saved Hanukkah By Amy Goldman Koss 64. Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet By Barbara Dee 65. Shadow Angel Book Three By Leia Stone & Julie Hall 66. The Matzah Ball By Jean Meltzer 67. Canción By Eduardo Halfon 68. Leopoldstadt By Tom Stoppard 69. Say Yes to the Duke By Eloisa James 70. Winter Roses after Fall By Robert M. Drake & r.h. Sin 71. Roomies By Christina Lauren 72. Falling Toward the Moon By Robert M. Darake & r.h. Sin 73. Empty Bottles Full of Stories By Robert M. Drake & r.h. Sin

#blogger #fandoms #fangirl #books #novels #poetry #romance #graphic novels

2 notes · View notes

thetrinityquotes · 3 years

Quote

There is a price, always, and the price I can pay: he is arrogant, used to walking over women like a blast of Jove’s lightning, but I am a match: I feel a growing strength, I do not merely idolize, I see right into the core of him, and he knows it (…)

Aurora about Klaus

#Aurora #aurora de martel #Auraus #Klaurora #trinity #The Trinity #incorrect quote #sylvia plath #The letters of Sylvia Plath #volume 1 #1940-1956 #to Aurelia Schober Plath

8 notes · View notes

derangedrhythms · 3 years

Note

hello, do you have any quotes about not knowing yourself anymore? some days it feels like im just living in an empty shell. i love reading your posts btw, helps me to forget life even if its just a moment :)

I’m so glad to hear that my posts help you and I hope these quotations do too. I wish you all the very best 🖤

“I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am."

"…I am not one and simple, but complex and many."

— Virginia Woolf, from 'The Waves'

"...I am out with lanterns, looking for myself."

— Emily Dickinson, Letters of Emily Dickinson; Dr. and Mrs. J. G. Holland, 1855

"As for the who am I? what am I? angle…that will preoccupy me till the day I die."

— Sylvia Plath, from 'The Letters of Sylvia Plath: Volume 1'

"And so I stood apart, / Hidden in my own heart."

— Theodore Roethke, Words for the Wind; from ‘The Voice’

"build a new soul. / dress it with skin / and then put on my shirt / and sing an anthem, / a song of myself."

— Anne Sexton, The Awful Rowing Toward God; from ‘The Civil War’

"…I feel apart from myself, split, a shadow…"

— Sylvia Plath, from 'The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath'

...the unceasing question, "Who am I?"

— Denise Levertov, The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov: Early and Uncollected Poems; from 'Poem'

"The shadows are empty, the sliding externals. / The wind wanders around the house / On its way to the back pasture. / The cindery snow ticks over stubble. / My dust longs for the invisible. / I'm reminded to stay alive / By the dry rasp of the recurring inane, / The fine soot drifting through my south windows. / It is hard to care about corners, / And the sound of paper tearing. / I fall, more and more, / Into my own silences. / In the cold air, / The spirit / Hardens."

— Theodore Roethke, The Waking; from ‘Old Lady’s Winter Words’

"I was giving myself the slip and walking through this world like a shadow."

— Jeanette Winterson, from 'Sexing the Cherry'

"This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary."

— Sylvia Plath, Ariel; from 'The Moon and the Yew Tree'

"I rose from my body and went out in search of who I am."

— Alejandra Pizarnik, Extracting the Stone of Madness; from ‘Paths of the Mirror’, tr. Yvette Siegert

"In the burned house I am eating breakfast. / You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast, / yet here I am."

— Margaret Atwood, Morning in the Burned House; from ‘Morning in the Burned House'

"Menacing gods. I feel outcast on a cold star…"

— Sylvia Plath, from 'The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath'

"In the mirror I see a creature I don’t know but must live and share my mind with."

— Kay Redfield Jamison, from 'An Unquiet Mind'

"Am I a being separate and apart from the rest of creation? I do not know. But when I looked into the mirror a moment ago I did not recognize myself. No, the old 'I' has died and rotted away, but no barrier, no gulf, exists between it and the new one."

"The person that I had been then existed no longer. If I had been able to conjure him up and to speak to him he would not have listened to me and, if he had, would not have understood what I said. He was like someone whom I had known once, but he was no part of me."

"I stood in front of the mirror and stared at my face. The reflection that I saw was unfamiliar to me. It was a weird, frightening image. My reflection had become stronger than my real self and I had become like an image in a mirror."

"My shadow had become more real than myself."

— Sadeq Hedayat, The Blind Owl and Other Stories; from 'The Blind Owl', tr. D. P. Costello

"They say that to know oneself is to know all there is that is human. But of course no one can ever know himself. Nothing human is finally calculable; even to ourselves we are strange."

— Gore Vidal, from 'Julian'

#compilations #self #emptiness

138 notes · View notes

fawnaura · 2 years

Quote

The reason why I hate the idea of growing up, I guess, is subconsciously because I want to remain a child and be sheltered from accepting the responsibility of things like earning a living, cooking, and taking care of myself. I’m so scatterbrained in that regard that it is a mental effort to remember to wash my underwear – to bring in a practical note. I also shy away from making decisions and thinking about what I’m good for – which I am convinced, isn’t much.

Sylvia Plath, from a letter to Ann Davidow-Goodman c. January 1951

#quote #sylvia plath #the letters of sylvia plath volume 1 #correspondence #child #childhood #adulthood #decisions

220 notes · View notes

tamsoj · 4 years

Quote

It all flowed over me with a screaming ache of pain . . . remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it.

Sylvia Plath, from a letter excerpt to Edward Cohen c. 11 September 1950, featured in The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1: 1940–1956

#Sylvia Plath #The Letters of Sylvia Plath #letters #September #September 11 #lit #on pain #on being #on life

79 notes · View notes

lovingsylvia · 4 years

Photo

“Dear Gordon …

Well, and then again, well. I am wishing you a happy Valentine’s Day, and no doubt shall continue to do so for quite some time.”

--Sylvia Plath, from a letter to Gordon Lameyer, written “Wednesday morning, January 26, 1955”; The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume I: 1940–1956, 2017

***

I wonder so often, what would have happened if Sylvia Plath had stayed with Gordon Lameyer and never met Richard Sassoon and then ulitmately Ted Hughes…

***

Picture: Sylvia Plath with Gordon Lameyer on 24 July 1954 at Chatham, Massachusetts, around the time they were unofficially engaged.

Picture source: via https://www.bbc.co.uk; Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, United States; Copyright Courtesy Elizabeth Lameyer Gilmore

#sylvia plath #gordon lameyer #sylviaplath #letters of sylvia plath #the letters of sylvia palth volume 1 #1955 #valentines day #1954 #chatham #lilly library #indiana university #ted hughes

40 notes · View notes

breakdownsandbreakthroughs · 4 years

Quote

I could read all day every day for the rest of my life and still be behind…

Letter to Aurellia Schober Plath, November 1955, Letter of Sylvia Plath Volume 1

87 notes · View notes

juenereveuse · 3 years

Text

Hello again, sweet angels! @seaoflove tagged me in their tag where you post your reading list for 2021. Thank you so much for tagging me, dear! 🌼🌷 Let's be real though, I probably won't be able to read half of these vfjdbh

1. Kvinnor och äppelträd by Moa Martinson

2. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

3. Little Women by Lousia May Alcott

4. The Outsider by S.E. Hinton

5. The Waves by Virginia Woolf

6. Albert Camus: Varken offer eller bödel by Jenny Maria Nilsson (your impact)

7. The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (I really wanted to read this before new year's but it turns out that it's not available on Nextory, for whatever fucking reason)

8. The Fall by Albert Camus

9. The Rebel by Albert Camus

10. The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing

11. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

12. The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara by Frank O'Hara

13. The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton

14. The Poetry of Pablo Neruda by Pablo Neruda

15. The Steven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

16. Atonement by Ian McEwan

17. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

18. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

19. The Pearl by John Steinbeck

20. The Suicide Club by Robert Louis Stevensson

21. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

22. Främling i vita rum by Lovette Jallow

23. Life of the Party by Olivia Gatwood

24. The Magus by John Fowles

25. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

26. In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

27. Aphrodite Made Me Do It by Trista Mateer

28. Home Body by Rupi Kaur

29. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

30. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

31. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

32. My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing

33. Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector

34. Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 1: 1940-1956 by Sylvia Plath

35. Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume 2: 1956-1963 by Sylvia Plath

#this was fun to put together!! thank you!#answered #seaoflove

4 notes · View notes

con-alas-de-angeles · 4 years

Text

But I am all for you, and you are that world in which I walk.

▪️ Sylvia Plath, from a letter to Ted Hughes wr. October 1, 1956: The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume I: 1940–1956

#my photography #sylvia plath #cemetery aesthetic #graveyard photography #graveyard life

4 notes · View notes

lost-in-books94 · 4 years

Text

Reading Log 2020

Oh my gosh, how can I forget to do a reading log???

Here we go again...

1) Little Women- Louisa May Alcott (re-read)

2) The Secret History- Donna Tartt (re-read)

3) Angel Mage- Garth Nix

4) A Heart So Fierce and Broken- Brigid Kemmerer

5) Red, White & Royal Blue- Casey McQuiston (re-read)

6) Heartstopper: Volume One- Alice Oseman

7) Heartstopper: Volume Two- Alice Oseman

8) The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue- Mackenzi Lee

9) Captive Prince- C.S. Pacat

10) Heartstopper: Volume Three- Alice Oseman

11) The Last Nude- Ellis Avery

12) Our Dark Duet- V.E. Schwab

13) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall- Anne Bronte

14) The Devouring Gray- Christine Lynn Herman (re-read)

15) Even the Darkest Stars- Heather Fawcett (re-read)

16) House of Earth and Blood- Sarah J. Maas

17) Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen (re-read)

18) The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms- N.K. Jemisin

19) The Midnight Lie- Marie Rutkoski

20) The Mime Order- Samantha Shannon

21) Havenfall- Sara Holland

22) The Priory of the Orange Tree- Samantha Shannon (re-read)

23) The City We Became- N.K. Jemisin

24) All the Wandering Light- Heather Fawcett

25) The Song Rising- Samantha Shannon

26) Villette- Charlotte Bronte

27) The Beautiful- Renee Ahdieh

28) The Shadows Between Us- Tricia Levenseller

29) The Deck of Omens- Christine Lynn Herman

30) Aurora Rising- Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (re-read)

31) Wicked Saints- Emily A. Duncan

32) Heart of Iron- Ashley Poston

33) Becoming- Michelle Obama

34) A Short History of Nearly Everything- Bill Bryson

35) Aurora Burning- Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

36) The Cruel Prince- Holly Black (re-read)

37) The Wicked King- Holly Black (re-read)

38) The Queen of Nothing- Holly Black (re-read)

39) The Nicomachean Ethics- Aristotle

40) The Scarlet Letter- Nathaniel Hawthorne

41) The Princess Diarist- Carrie Fisher

42) Moonscript- H.S.J. Williams

43) Nevernight- Jay Kristoff (re-read)

44) Godsgrave- Jay Kristoff (re-read)

45) Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy

46) Darkdawn- Jay Kristoff (re-read)

47) Wishful Drinking- Carrie Fisher

48) Frankenstein- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

49) A Room with a View- E.M. Forster

50) The Court of Miracles- Kester Grant

51) Jo & Laurie- Margaret Stohl & Melissa de la Cruz

52) Lady Susan- Jane Austen

53) A Little Life- Hanya Yanagihara

54) No One Is Too Small to Make A Difference- Greta Thunberg

55) Mansfield Park- Jane Austen

56) We Rise: Speeches by Inspirational Black Women- Amanda Meadows, Barbara Jordan, Condoleezza Rice et al.

57) Falling Kingdoms- Morgan Rhodes

58) Daughter of Smoke and Bone- Laini Taylor

59) Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

60) Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold- Stephen Fry

61) The Archived- V.E. Schwab

62) The Unbound- V.E. Schwab

63) Good Omens- Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman (re-read)

64) The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires- Grady Hendrix

65) War and Peace- Leo Tolstoy

66) White Fragility- Robin DiAngelo & Michael Eric Dyson

67) The Damned- Renee Ahdieh

68) Northanger Abbey- Jane Austen

69) Hamlet- William Shakespeare

70) The Master and Margarita- Mikhail Bulgakov

71) The Good Immigrant- Nikeh Shukla etc.

72) The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde

73) Shockaholic- Carrie Fisher

74) Feminists Don’t Wear Pink and Other Lies- Scarlett Curtis etc

75) The Umbrella Academy, Vol 2: Dallas- Gerard Way & Gabriel Ba

76) The People in the Trees- Hanya Yanagihara

77) Out of Orange- Cleary Wolters

78) Rebecca- Daphne du Maurier

79) The Umbrella Academy, Vol 3: Hotel Oblivion- Gerard Way & Gabriel B

80) City of Bones- Cassandra Clare (re-read)

81) The Sandman- Neil Gaiman & Dirk Maggs (audiobook)

82) Much Ado About Nothing- William Shakespeare

83) Gideon the Ninth- Tamsyn Muir

84) The Soul of a Man Under Socialism- Oscar Wilde

85) De Profundis- Oscar Wilde

86) A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes- Stephen Hawking

87) The Lost Book of the White- Cassandra Clare & Wesley Chu

88) City of Ashes- Cassandra Clare

89) Mortal Engines- Philip Reeve

90) City of Glass- Cassandra Clare

91) City of Fallen Angels- Cassandra Clare

92) Predator’s Gold- Philip Reeve

93) City of Lost Souls- Cassandra Clare

94) City of Heavenly Fire- Cassandra Clare

95) Infernal Devices- Philip Reeve

96) The Catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger

97) Murder on the Orient Express- Agata Christie

98) Clockwork Angel- Cassandra Clare

99) Fire and Fury: Michael Wolff

100) Clockwork Prince- Cassandra Clare

101) Clockwork Princess- Cassandra Clare

102) The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue- V.E. Schwab

103) The Bane Chronicles- Cassandra Clare

104) Midnight Sun- Stephenie Meyer

105) The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath

106) Heroes:Mortals and Monsters, Quests and Adventures- Stephen Fry

107) Harrow the Ninth- Tamsyn Muir

#reading log

6 notes · View notes

scarlettsabetlondongirl · 5 years

Photo

The Town and The City Festival Lowell, MA October 19 & 20, 2018 – Day 1 – The Poets by Kathy Murray for Live Music News and Review

An interview with Scarlett Sabet

I had first heard about the innaugural run of The Town and The City Festival on Instagram from the acclaimed poetess, Scarlett Sabet. The festival had been created surrounding the life and works of Jack Kerouac, a Lowell resident for most of his life. Scarlett herself was an avid fan of Kerouac, and she was traveling from England to perform a reading for the festival. I was absolutely thrilled. I had been waiting for her to come back to the States, more specifically to the Northeast, so that I could go see her read. I had been a fan of her poetry for quite some time, but had only seen snippets of her incredibly moving readings online and I could not wait to experience it firsthand.

I reached out to her soon after getting my press credentials for the show, to find out if she would like to sit down for an interview. I was pleasantly surprised when she agreed, and doubly so when she asked if I would like to also include the poet Janaka Stucky, who was on the bill with her that night. I, of course, was more than happy to agree!

We had discussed meeting at the venue just after they did their soundcheck at about 6:00pm, to allow enough time before the readings began. When I arrived, I entered the Parish Hall, and waited while one of the staff went to get Scarlett and Janaka. When they came out, Scarlett greeted me like an old friend, giving me a big hug, and I presented her with a small token of appreciation for agreeing to do our interview, a painting I had done for her. Janaka suggested we go into the room that had been set up as the ‘Green Room’ for the event, so we made our way in there.

Kathy: With ‘Zoreh’, I noticed that with ‘Elegy’, well first, it’s like the longest piece in the book, and I was wondering, what was your inspiration for it?

Scarlett: So with ‘Elegy’, whenever I read it, I always say this is a poem I didn’t want to write; but I knew I’d have to. It was, I mean, it was personal grief across death, and also kind of old grief, reliving childhood stuff. I’m sure there are more layers to come, but when you’re an adult, you kind of think okay, I’ve already dealt with anything that upset me as a kid. But it’s events that happen that kind of brought it up again, and I was like, I’m going to give myself one poem for this and that’s it. I was abroad this January, and it was like the pressure, with just the physical moving, and I just sat down and just wrote it all. Pretty much that’s just how it came out. And it is a long one, and it’s interesting performing it.

Kathy: Very raw. Very emotional. I know I definitely connected with it having lost numerous people in my life, not just as an adult, but at a very young age, and experiencing grief at very different emotional levels. You can definitely feel the emotion of the piece and connect with it through that.

Scarlett: That’s good. That’s good, because I think something like that personal grief, you don’t want it to be – and this is the other thing of being an adult, being like well everyone goes through this. I think there’s a line in the poem like, ‘but what about this is special, that which has happened to you?’ because part of it’s like pull yourself together, you know, getting sick of yourself. And it just becomes the wait, and that thing of ‘it’s going to take time’ and then the question ‘well how long does time take?’. People are like, ‘time takes time, give time time’. Like, no one wants to hear that, I want to be better now. And looking back, I learned so much and I’m a stronger person getting on the other side of it. But it was uncomfortable, but I also think that it’s uncomfortable, awkward things, restriction or difficulties, you know, good things come out of it sometimes.

Kathy: There’s an element of rediscovery of yourself. I know in some ways it was for me. One of the parts I was curious of; you spoke of the ‘wet isle of Lavender in bloom’. What isle were you talking about?

Scarlett: It’s a place called the Isle of Bute in Scotland. So my mom is French-Scottish, and it was where her burial was taking place. And I’ve got generations of family buried there. And it was just going over on the ferry, and I know I say in the poem that it was ‘small and unrelenting’ cause it was just like, ‘Why am I in London? I should just move here,’ you know what I mean? And I was just reassessing stuff, and it just made a mockery of city life; it was all the stuff of it, like it was this tiny small place, but it was making a pilgrimage back to it. I hadn’t been there with someone, I hadn’t been there since I was seventeen, so a hell of a lot had happened. So it had been, like, ten years, and it was very interesting, just the gap of what had changed personally and professionally. What is also interesting, the Marquess of Bute, the nobleman that lived there – and his descendants still live there – in the Victorian times, commissioned William Burges to build The Tower House (in Kensington), where he was Burges’ patron. So that was kind of an interesting thing. And Mount Stuart is also very similar to the Tower Houses design.

Kathy: So I know that we talked online about this, but there’s a common astrological theme that moves throughout ‘Zoreh’, and I know that you’re very into astrology, as am I, being Pagan. I wondered how you got into it initially and how you choose to incorporate it into your work.

Scarlett: That’s a good question. It was actually when Jimmy and I got together. We’d been together a couple of months, and he was like, ‘Let’s get your chart done.’ I knew my Sun sign but I didn’t know anything beyond that. So we got it done. And he opened it and was like hmmm, and I was like what does that mean? And I was like wait he’s got the blueprint to me and I don’t want to see this; let’s put it away. So I got really superstitious, and I put it away for a year. And then I read it, and it was actually really good, it was really accurate. And just kind of delving into it, and studying it; I think good astrology is very mathematical, it’s, you know, physics and math and it’s an ancient science. I think it is just, with bad astrology, I always say especially referencing ‘Lilith in the Midheaven’ from ‘Zoreh’, I always say that bad astrology gives good astrology a bad name. And when you mention it [astrology], people are like, oh you believe in that; it’s like yeah, I do believe in the coordinates, and the position of where I was born.

I think Ted Hughes was very into astrology and he was very connected to nature, the kind of bloodiness of nature, and he wrote a letter of his daughter’s birth chart when she was born (Frieda Hughes). Every President up until JFK had an astrologer and, it’s just, it’s not something new, it’s something old that’s kind of been lost touch with. I don’t know, looking back, it’s certain astrological points denote my life. Going back to ‘Elegy’, Neptune and Sagittarius, those 2 years from 2015 to 2017, were pretty intense for me. I’m Sagittarius rising, and obviously now I’ve got a Saturn return, which is really interesting. So there’s a new poem I’ll be reading tonight as well where I mention Kerouacs astrology. It’s something that is there, that I use in the imagery, and people can delve more into it if they want to. And people, like yourself, that already get the references. But, like with ‘Lilith in the Midheaven’, I like the structure of the Synastry [chart], and just discovering it and being like like ‘oh so that’s why its like that’.

Kathy: So it’s funny that you had mentioned ‘Lillith’, because that was actually going to be my next question for you. People interpret all art differently, and the way that I was experiencing it, was that love kind of renews your life every day. And how you can find somebody that is your signs mate and the connections that you share across those intricate ties. Like, within myself, finding someone who can feed my creative fire, and reciprocate it, which I feel is very important to a strong relationship. Now, I was going to ask your thoughts on that, but you already answered that in my last question to you. Who would you consider, other than Kerouac, your poetic infulences to be?

Scarlett: Influences? That’s really interesting. I think I always say Ted Hughes and a lot of people are like, ‘but Sylvia Plath, don’t you like her?’. And I do, but there’s something about Ted Hughes. He’s so fairly, or unfairly, targeted after the very tragic circumstances of both of his wives [Sylvia Plath and Assia Wevill] suicides, and I kind of admire the way he carried on regardless. And also, just the kind of bloodiness, just…the intensity of his work, the bloodiness of nature, his whole energy and focus, and just how prolific he was. I think he’s an influence, not necessarily in style but in just [that raw emotion] yeah and I think it’s continuing on in the face of adversity. I also think it’s really interesting that he’d written all these love poems for Sylvia Plath that he didn’t publish until nine months before he died, and if he’d done that earlier, the public perception of him might have been a bit more sympathetic, and he kind of kept it to himself. And when his daughter – he won an award for it after his death, collected it on his behalf, she quoted him, I’m just paraphrasing, she said, ‘it’s a shame we have to give away our secrets’, which was just really interesting, him referring to the fact, that he released this massive volume of love poems for Sylvia Plath, which kind of proved that he did care.

But intense influence, obviously my partner [Jimmy Page] is very influential, just in terms of how hard working he is and still is. And really, if I have an editor, it’s him. Like, and it’s funny, with ‘Lilith and the Midheaven’, the night before I sent it to the publisher, I was like, “Oh, I’m not sure, I don’t know, I was going to cut some stuff out”, and he was like, “Why are you doing that? That’s good, keep that in.” And he actually read [aloud] ‘Lillith in the Midheaven’. I was really questioning it. And he read it and in his voice I think, just the separation, it not being in my voice, I was like, ‘Oh okay, you know, I’m good with it.’ And he was like, “Yeah, you see, let’s keep that in, yeah?” So I did. And obviously talent is good and essential, but it’s just also working really hard and letting go of stuff. So I think he’s a great example for me, on a day to day basis.

Kathy: I want to ask both of you this next question – do you have any reading’s coming up?

Scarlett: Yeah, so I’ve got in November in London I’m doing actually a kind of reading at the Troubador, and I’m doing it with Reel Art Press, because they put out a beat book earlier this year, so we’re kind of going to be exhibiting some beat paraphernalia, some of Ginsberg’s letters, and photos from the beat book. I’m going to be performing with this amazing poet called, Oakley, and I saw him perform, well we performed together at the Byline Festival [August 2018]. That’s real exciting.

Kathy: Will either of you be performing any of Jack Kerouacs works tonight?

Scarlett: I’m performing tonight a poem I wrote kind of as soon as it was confirmed I was doing this event; so what is interesting is, Janaka and I, this is only the second time we’ve met. But we’ve got a friendship spanning years now, and its through correspondence because obviously we live in different countries. But the common thread that brought us together is the Beats. So we met at the 50th anniversary of the Holy Communion, and the Holy Communion was a four hour poetry reading in London at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965 that Jimmy went to. So we went to the 50th anniversary of that, and Janaka was this stand out poet and I was just like, ‘fuck, who is this guy??’ We connected through social media, and then when I was bringing out Zoreh and set to perform at City Lights, they were like okay we’ll find a poet for you to read with. I said, no, I know who I want to read with. And I said to him, okay we’ve never met, and I don’t know you, but if you’re able to fly to San Francisco in March? and Janaka was like yeah, I can do it. So we met for the first time, a half an hour before. And it was at that reading that we met Chris Porter and he came up to us at the end and was like, hey I’m doing this thing in Lowell, and my eyes like lit up, because when I read at Wellesley College, I visited and paid my respects in Lowell at Kerouacs grave, so coming here feels like everything aligned. When this was confirmed I wrote a poem for Jack Kerouac, just kind of it had so much beauty and purity to it as well but obviously kind of the tragedy, of his demise kind of drinking himself to death, and just being ridiculed as well being because he was new, he was popular. People said he was not a real writer. Kapote said he’s not writing, he’s just typing. So anyway, I’m performing a poem that’s still a work in progress, but it just felt right to share and infuse it with the energy of this evening. So I’m looking forward to doing that.

Kathy: They [Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones] just put out a new book, ‘Led Zeppelin by Led Zeppelin’, it features never before seen photos and correspondences. Can you respond to that? What is your take on it, like what do you think of it?

Scarlett: Can you believe that there are still never been seen images? I think the book is really important because it’s from the people that were actually there and lived it. And obviously it’s Jimmy’s band, and he created it and his notes you know he’s got a great memory. He was there and he was creating it and everything he did was intentional. And I think people always assume he’s so mysterious but even like on his website, that changes ever day, if you just look he’s giving you the answers. But I feel like so often there are books or interviews people do with him and they’ll ask him questions about an alleged story that may or may not have happened that keeps getting repeated and they want an updated quote on something that may not even be true. And I think it’s really, if you want to know anything about him, just read his own words and the music and that’s where kind of the motivation and the fact that he’s still working like 12 hour days, like insane work ethic, 50 years later, is why he is where he is and who he is. So I never have an excuse, no matter, you know my day job or whatever else I’ve been doing, I can never like slack because he’s there like, I can’t complain about being tired. And he has children and is a great dad so it’s like God I can’t complain about it. So I say get it because he really respects and loves people like you, and his fans, who love his music and get it and I think a lot of what he does it out of respect for that.

Scarlett came up next, performing pieces from Zoreh, The Lock and The Key and Rocking Underground, as well as her work-in-progress poem to Jack Kerouac. I can honestly say that reading her poetry is amazing, but hearing her read her poetry is an experience unto itself. The power and emotion that she conveys when she speaks her written word is cathartic.

#scarlett sabet #jimmy page #jimmy page girlfriend #led zeppelin #poet #poetry #the town and the city #the town and the city festival #zoreh #The lock and the key #Rocking Underground

4 notes · View notes