SYLVIA PLATH: A BIOGRAPHY 

SYLVIA AND MARILYN MONROE
SYLVIA AND GIRL-CHATTING
SYLVIA AND HEATHCLIFF
SYLVIA AND CAPOTE
SYLVIA AND TED
SYLVIA AND STELLA DALLAS
SYLVIA AND BETTY GRABLE
SYLVIA AND ARIEL
__________________

SYLVIA AND MARILYN MONROE

“Marilyn Monroe appeared
to me last night in a dream”
—Sylvia Plath
_______________

We were in that empty—
Niagara Falls Bell Tower
after the murder scene

Joseph Cotton helped her—
up off the floor, apologizing
for strangling her to death
_______________

Her handsome lover—
there in the morgue where
she’d fainted in shock

She picked up her lipstick—
and the rest of her spilled
purse on the cold floor

SYLVIA AND GIRL-CHATTING

“Marilyn Monroe “chats” 
with Sylvia Plath. The sex
goddess girl-talks Sylvia.”
—Carl Rollyson, American Isis:
The Life of Sylvia Plath
___________

“Honey, you need a—
decent manicure”
Marilyn said to Sylvia

“Plus a much better—
hairdresser, my dear,
that horrid cut of yours!”
___________

She invited Sylvia—
over for the weekend
with Arthur Miller.

T. S. Eliot was—
there too, fussing
about her WASTELAND.”

SYLVIA AND HEATHCLIFF

“Ted’s friends, who cared
only about poetry, did not
like Sylvia”—Carl Rollyson, 
American Isis: The Life 
of Sylvia Plath
______________

What a grim, gaunt—
bunch of Yorkshire creeps
haunting the moors

Especially Ted Hughes—
such a handsome & hunky
Heathcliff, my dears
____________

Just another one—
of those Mexborough 
moody murderers

Yet Sylvia thought—
she could civilize
the young tough!!!

SYLVIA AND CAPOTE

It was a place of force— 
The wind gagging my mouth”
—Sylvia Plath, “Rabbit Catcher”
________________

At a reading—
given by campy
Truman Capote


Hughes’ sexist—
Homophobia was
quite apparent
_______________

Capote the gay—
Queen flaunting
his homosexuality

Prefiguring Sylvia’s—
forthcoming death
in “The Rabbit Catcher”

SYLVIA AND TED

“Ted Hughes was
baffled by Plath’s
desire to write
popular prose”
—Carl Rollyson, 
American Isis: The 
Life of Sylvia Plath
__________

Ted the brooding—
apparently misanthropic
alarming hoodlum-poet

Sylvia’s ideal butchy—
sullen stud film noir
Male femme fatale
__________

He had all the meanness—
and deadness of modern
Male English Verse

A Yorkshire Killer instinct—
a Mytholmroyd Jack Palance
like in SUDDEN FEAR

SYLVIA AND STELLA DALLAS

“Olwyn suggested Aurelia
was depriving Sylvia of
her place in “our literary
heritage.”—Carl Rollyson, 
American Isis: The Life 
of Sylvia Plath
_________________

How Sylvia strived to—
stir up all the women in
her melodramatic life

Soap Star STELLA DALLAS—
with here ripples in the
vast Tearjerker Sea
________________

Olive Higgins Prouty—
NOW VOYAGER queen bee
Iconic lib Bette Davis

Then Smith & Cambridge—
Sylvia ever so stylishly
The Marilyn Monroe Poet

SYLVIA AND BETTY GRABLE

“She was no Emily Dickinson”
—Carl Rollyson, American Isis:
The Life of Sylvia Plath
______________

Sylvia needed an—
audience to witness
her Oscar performances

Styling herself as—
cheesecake Betty Grable
glamorizing Cambridge
___________

The same with her—
final act on the BBC
performing DADDY

Sylvia was the—
Lady Gaga of the
Eisenhower Republic

SYLVIA AND ARIEL

“In Ted Hughes, in other 
words, Sylvia had created
a monster”—Carl Rollyson
American Isis: The Life 
of Sylvia Plath
__________

Sylvia realized her—
new dramatic dialog
ARIEL was both

The Story and—
Biographical Climax
of her so-called life
__________

She’d created a—
Pulp Fiction Male
Monster DADDY

Shocking the world—
with her new feminist
Electra Complex
__________

The only problem—
was she’d ended up
like Elsa Lanchester

Simply horrified as—
The Nouveau BRIDE OF 
FRANKENSTEIN!!!!