Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath
Written by Stephanie Hemphill
4/5
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About this audiobook
Your Own, Sylvia draws on Plath's writing and extensive nonfiction sources, chronicling Hemphill's interpretation of Plath's life from infancy to her death by suicide at age 30. The poems are arranged chronologically and each conveys an experience in Plath's life told via the voice and perspective of family members, friends, doctors, fellow writers, etc.-as interpreted by Hemphill. Each poem is accompanied by an addendum that further explains the factual circumstances of that poem's subject.
Stephanie Hemphill
Stephanie Hemphill is the award-winning author of Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein; Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist; Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book; Sisters of Glass; and Things Left Unsaid: A Novel in Poems. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.
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Reviews for Your Own, Sylvia
83 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What a magnificent book. The idea to use poetry to tell Plath's story is genius.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5That was unexpected.I spent the first half of the book bemoaning the fact that I was reading yet another book in verse when I know that books in verse are really, really not my thing. It's true. I hate them. They just don't speak to me. But then I started the second half of the book, and while I still wish it hadn't been in verse, I found myself connecting rather strongly with the story.I find myself kind of...enraged...on behalf of Sylvia Plath. I realize that she suffered from depression, the really dark, bad kind, and probably would have no matter what. But it's hard to believe that she wouldn't have been better in a more modern society, where a woman academic, a poet, a scholar wouldn't have been seen as "unfeminine." Where she wouldn't have been encouraged to abandon her own talents, her own career, to be a wife, housekeeper, and mother. Where she wouldn't have felt pressured to be everything to everyone, jamming her art into stolen moments. Where she wouldn't have had to manage a home, two children, her husband's effing career (and why couldn't he manage this himself? HE wasn't raising two children and keeping house...), and trying to build her own career on top of that.Which brings me to Ted Hughes. I'm trying really hard to be fair to this man. It cannot have been easy living with a mentally ill wife. It must have been impossible. BUT NO ONE IN THE WORLD COULD HAVE HANDLED IT AS BADLY AS HE DID. He soaks up her youthful adulation, watching as this beautiful young poet who he claimed to admire sacrificed her poetry to be his little wife and cheerleader. Watching as she juggled their two children and her poetry, marveling that it was possible as he gallivants around, not offering much support. And once all that she had to give had been wrung out of her, once she was tired and sinking into isolation and depression, once she was no longer fun, he left her. And he didn't just leave her. Oh, no. He smacked her around emotionally. He had an affair. He left without warning or any hint of where he had gone. He stopped seeing the children. He told her that he had never even wanted children. So why would he accept any responsibility for them? Right? RIGHT?? He said that he had never grown tired of living in London, as he previously told her. He had just grown tired of living there with her. This woman, who he knew suffered from depression, was decimated. And he should have known. I have never in my life read about a bigger ass. I have sympathy for Sylvia. I'm not sure she could have been saved, but it feels like Ted Hughes killed her. And worse, this book even details a conversation he had with his pregnant, married mistress, where they casually wondered if Sylvia would kill herself. RAGE. ALL THE RAGE IN THE WORLD.It's also worth mentioning that the aforementioned mistress also killed herself when Ted reportedly left her for another woman. She also killed their daughter. This dude was a winner. And to add insult to injury, when posthumously publishing Sylvia's final poems, he rearranged them to suit his fancy, burying the poems she considered most important and her finest work in the middle of the book instead of anchoring it as she intended.A sad story. Very, very sad.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Beautiful book, great introduction to the style of Plath's work. Wonderful book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book explores the life of Sylvia Plath through poetry written from the points of view from various people important in Plath's life. Based on biographies written about Plath and with poems written in styles emulating Plath's work, the book traces her life from her early days through her tragic end. Each poem has a footnote offering a context for the poem and further information. The footnotes were really small and in a light print which made it offputting at first. After reading the book, I do want to read some of Plath's work.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is a collection of poems that explores the life of Sylvia Plath through the eyes of her friends and family. I really don't know anything about Sylvia Plath or about poetry, but I enjoyed getting a glimpse of Plath's life through Ms. Hemphill's poems. She includes extensive source notes (yay!) and notes with each poem to explain what event in Sylvia's life inspired that particular poem or to give other information about the truth contained in the poem.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read Your own, Sylvia by Stephanie Hemphill over the last week. It was well researched and very creative; I enjoyed reading the poems as it re-enforces the work that Plath's biographers have done. I did find its reliance on Rough Magic troublesome. Rough Magic has its moments of goodness and I have often referred to it in my Plath studies. It is a unique approach to examining and reading Plath's life, work, and her friends and family and other acquaintances.I did find two things worth commenting on regarding Your Own, Sylvia. First, there was no poem for an event that took place the week of her birthday in 1960: Heinemann's publication of The Colossus and other poems. Secondly, and this really bothered me, throughout the poems relating to Plath's time in Devon, North Tawton is called Croton. I believe this is what Butscher called North Tawton in his Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness, presumably to protect the names of the innocent. But, I am disappointed that Hemphill overlooked this masking and thus, may perpuate the misnomer.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At first I found the footnotes distracting but they ended up being a useful addenda and clarification for the poems. I am not a Plath fan but the book intrigued me enough to want to learn more about her life and personality. An absorbing read for Plath fans and motivated readers who are not too familiar with her.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is a book of poetry inspired by the life of Sylvia Plath. I was a little surprised to find it on audiobook until I got the hang of listening to it. The poems are told from the perspective of people who knew Sylvia; mother, siblings, boyfriends, doctors, friends and acquaintances. For each poem there is a brief introduction regarding who is speaking and then the poem. Afterwards the author reads any foot notes regarding the time of Sylvia's life or the person speaking. I actually found this a little confusing. That information comes across as though it should be part of the introductory info and I kept getting confused about who and sometimes what the next poem was going to be about.
It was definitely an interesting way to tell the story of Sylvia's life. I found the poems telling the story from someone's point of view more interesting then the poems that were just written "in the style of" specific poems by Sylvia. Sometimes the "in the style" poems felt jarring b/c they weren't entirely contributing to the ongoing narrative. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sylvia Plath is an enigma that I've spent a (probably) unhealthy amount of time trying to understand. Like many women and teens who've read her work, I feel a strong sense of kinship to Plath that fuels my curiosity, and I found Stephanie Hemphill's Your Own, Sylvia to be a welcome and engaging read which offered both interesting information and the emotion of poetry.It surprised me how much I learned while reading Your Own, Sylvia. Many of the poems mimic poems written by Plath in style or form and were informed by the reports or writings of those who knew her. It's clear that the poems are fictional accounts created by Hemphill, but, for me, each had a clear ring of truth and feasibility. It's clear Hemphill spent much time researching Plath and those in her life before composing the poems that make up the novel. Some of them are better than others, that is, some felt more aesthetically pleasing, but they all contributed in an important way to the overall narrative. After each poem, Hemphill added factual information or a short explanation of the poem. Given the personal nature of the poetry, the information included often had a personal tone as well. I never felt that I was being force fed dry bits of factual information, rather, each fact gave additional depth and meaning to Hemphill's poems and created a more vivid portrait of Plath.I highly recommend Your Own, Sylvia to readers with a particular interest in Plath, as well as those who generally enjoy poetry and verse novels. Hemphill's novel is unique in that it focuses on a real person and weaves facts into the verse novel format, offering readers something new and notable. I'm looking forward to Hemphill's upcoming verse portrait, Hideous Love: The Story of the Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein. This novel, which focuses on author Mary Shelley, is scheduled for an October 2013 release.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Your Own, Sylvia is a uniquely-told biographical work told in the style of poetry mimicking Sylvia Plath’s own poetry. Interspersed among the author’s own poetry is Plath’s own poetry; after every poem is a snippet of biographical information told in chronological order. Each poem focuses on a different viewpoint of a person important in Plath’s life: Sylvia herself, her mother, her brother, her sister, her boyfriends, her college friends, and her husband, Ted Hughes. There are also poems told from the viewpoint of various persons who were witness to or privy to important information in her life, such as various editors and neighbors.Hemphill cautions that “although [this book is] based on real events and real people, [it] is first and foremost a work of fiction.” Her own poetry “[takes] liberties imagining conversations and descriptions and interpreting the feelings of the real people speaking in these poems.” Yet, that does not stop Hemphill from portraying a unique chronological timeline of Plath’s life, hitting on the peaks and valleys of Plath’s tumultuous existence. While Hemphill’s poetry is nowhere near as refined as Plath’s, and the juxtaposition is jarring at times, Hemphill does a fair job of detailing what happened and what she thinks happened, painting a fine picture of biographical details.“She’s a wee bit differentFrom the other girls,Cuts her eggs into squares.”-American Girl, 105“We discipline ourselves to a lifeOf poetry.”-Benidorm, 124“Without poetry she would crumbleLike a dried-out lemon cake,Stale and inedible. She talksBright, but something in her has hardened.”-Routine, 173“She says, ‘When you give someoneYour whole heartAnd he doesn’t want it, you cannotTake it back.It’s gone forever.’”-Sylvia Begins to Tell the Truth, 189