The only way Plath could possibly have got into the higher echelons of
British poetry at that time was by attaching herself to a male poet. I
believe that's the only connection, and that they were competing hard with
each other, which led both to write better in their own ways.
bw
SallyE

on 14/8/03 2:13 am, Bob Cooper at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Hi Arthur,
> Some hurried comments! Keeping the flux, you say it's in, hot.
> 1. If the Churches are mentioned as an allusion/metaphor to Plath (& Hughes)
> might you not mention you pass them after visiting the grave (not before).
> That way the reader is led to reflect in the progression of the poem rather
> than the progression of the poet. Erch, that sounds ponderous! I'm thinking
> which comes first - and suggesting it's Plath & Hughes then the churches!
> Carts & Horses.
> 2.  A puzzle... I've never been able to fully work with any connections
> between the poems of Plath and the poems of Hughes. There must be some - but
> most of the critical comments I seem to remember about Plath's poems seem to
> explore her relationship with her father. (There must be some links, tho!).
> 3.  I think it's great to include allusions to a poet's poems in a poem
> you're writing about her/him! I guess I had Remains of Elmet (with Godwin's
> photographs from the book) and a salmon (from River) in my Hughes poem. I
> think grasshopper had allusions in her poem too. And we debated Before The
> Last Bus to Alston just over a year ago - where I'd embedded lots of Auden's
> poetry into the poem. So, go for it! No need for single malts all the time -
> be like their contemporaries - go for the blends!
> 4. I feel their relationship was often stormy! At odd times I've been told
> (odd) stories about all sorts of things - some by people who knew either one
> or the other of them, or both. There's a reticence about telling the tales,
> tho. (Perhaps because people who knew them hold them in such high regard).
> But it's still possible to say things (as you are doing here!)
> 5. I'd think about the title as and when the poem finds it's final form.
> Bob
>
> Oh, a PS! The Methodist Church in the village is also worth a visit. Very
> old and one of only two octagonal preaching houses in the UK. Very daring
> for its day!
> And the rock-climbing in the Quarry is exhilarating, too!
>
>
>> From: arthur seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Heptonstall: Swift rewrite. (Bob, colin
>> Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 07:40:50 +0100
>>
>> Thanks for the read and comments, Bob and Colin).
>> This is very much work in progress, not really fully gestated.
>> I do not like to explain poems, after all they should speak for
>> themselves,
>> but clearly but this is a workshop so I might as well discuss my thinking.
>> I had intended to start the poem without the references to the churches but
>> wondered why Heptonstall is visited at all. The village is itself sealed in
>> time, as Haworth Main Street or Beamish, and worth a visit for that but it
>> has two other things, the two churches and Sylvia Plath's grave.
>> The old church was destroyed by fire in a violent storm. Rather than pull
>> it
>> down and start again, they simply moved sideways and built a new church.
>> Outside the new church is a piece already struck from the building by
>> another storm. ( Ted used to call himself an Easter Island carving)
>> Now this place of storms, Tempests, and Plath's book of poems, Ariel,
>> seemed
>> a trifle more than coincidence, my fancy only, nothing scientific.
>> There seemed some kind of metaphor in the storm attacked churches and the
>> relationship between Ted and Sylvia ( she bit him on the cheek the day they
>> met). The first three strophes imposed themselves, I altered 'shade' to
>> 'shades', to bring in the idea of spirits/ghosts, let 'curiously coupled
>> 'point two ways and moved out of the churchyard into the neighbouring
>> field.
>> I did wonder whether the neighbouring burial field was an overspill or
>> whether Sylvia's suicide had anything to do with her relegation there. I am
>> not sure of the Church's attitude to suicide now.
>> The tombstone has in the past been attacked and attempts to chisel out the
>> 'Hughes' have been made by militant feminists. After 'Birthday Letters'
>> things seem to have cooled . I did not see any evidence of attack but the
>> stone may have been changed.
>> The attempts to ' dress' her grave site, I found, personally, pathetic,
>> hence the references to ragged mosaic and limp flowers.
>> I am rewriting this poem and will try to 'focus' it a little. As to the
>> metaphor of the two churches ( Ted/Sylvia) it either works or it doesn't, I
>> try to leave room for the reader and dashing in with signposts saying' this
>> is a metaphor' just wouldn't do. The title might help and I am under a
>> working title at the moment.
>> Excuse this long response but it has helped my thinking to discuss it in
>> depth. Regards Arthur
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 5:09 PM
>> Subject: Re: Heptonstall: Swift rewrite.
>>
>>
>> Hi Arthur,
>> I've read this through a fair few times! But I don't think it's focused
>> yet...
>> I mean I keep asking, when I've read it, "Now, what's it about?"
>> and I want to answer "Sylvia Plath's Grave."
>> So then I ask myself, "So why mention the thunderstorm stricken Church?
>> What
>> about the newer Church? How do they fit into what's going on?"
>> And I can't find clear enough answers...  ... if there is a link - and
>> there
>> might well be - it might be that the lines about Plath may need to echo
>> more
>> clearly what's said about the buildings (like I feel there's something
>> being
>> said about her in describing the flowers and all else on and around the
>> grave).
>> And "not let to heal" - "not left to heal" is, I guess, standard speech.
>> But
>> "let" can also work, can it?
>> And have you played with the shape of the poem? (Impishly I'm wondering
>> what
>> it would look like, how it would work, if it looked the same shape as her
>> gravestone).
>> Bob
>>
>>
>>> From: arthur seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Heptonstall: Swift rewrite.
>>> Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 14:11:53 +0100
>>>
>>> Heptonstall: 2003
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This is a place
>>>
>>> where storms gather
>>>
>>> and destroy.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The old church
>>>
>>> brought down
>>>
>>> by the mindless violence of lightning,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> a carved coping
>>>
>>> of the new, bludgeoned loose
>>>
>>> by another blow.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Beyond the shades
>>>
>>> of the curiously coupled churches,
>>>
>>> ash and phoenix,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> across a small dirt road
>>>
>>> into a neighbouring field,
>>>
>>> I find her.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Someone has picked
>>>
>>> at the scab of earth,
>>>
>>> caressed her while cursing him,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> planted flowers,
>>>
>>> limp in the heat,
>>>
>>> and a ragged mosaic of flat stones,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> artless
>>>
>>> as a child's fancy
>>>
>>> on a summer beach,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> the headstone
>>>
>>> heavily erect over her,
>>>
>>> 'Sylvia Plath Hughes',
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Lady Lazurus unrisen.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> All poets, it seems, must die,
>>>
>>> mouths plugged with soil,
>>>
>>> lips edited by worms,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> chemistry stopped,
>>>
>>> direction altered unalterably,
>>>
>>> broken, left to change,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> under the blue benign,
>>>
>>> into the mute pathos
>>>
>>> of limp flowers
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> the wound
>>>
>>> not let to heal
>>>
>>> under the obliterations of grass.
>>
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