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henna day post / Plath letters
Feb. 3rd, 2018 02:12 pmI am hennaing my hair, during a spate of ridiculously beautiful Los Angeles weather (with no end in sight).
I finally finished reading volume 1 of the Plath letters. Reading the last months in the book, I was struck by the fact that, if not for Plath, Ted Hughes might never have had a writing career. When they met, he had not attempted to publish any of his work (aside from student magazines). Plath lavished her considerable market savvy on Hughes. Taking time from her grad school work and her own writing, she typed up and sent out his manuscripts, and even made sure he bought a suit so he'd be presentable to go for an interview at the BBC (radio). (To hear Plath tell it, when they met he wore basically the same trousers and old sweater every day.)
It's also more than a little ironic to read Plath crowing about how, unlike bitter women writers like Dorothy Parker, she was going to make her name writing happy love poems...
I finally finished reading volume 1 of the Plath letters. Reading the last months in the book, I was struck by the fact that, if not for Plath, Ted Hughes might never have had a writing career. When they met, he had not attempted to publish any of his work (aside from student magazines). Plath lavished her considerable market savvy on Hughes. Taking time from her grad school work and her own writing, she typed up and sent out his manuscripts, and even made sure he bought a suit so he'd be presentable to go for an interview at the BBC (radio). (To hear Plath tell it, when they met he wore basically the same trousers and old sweater every day.)
It's also more than a little ironic to read Plath crowing about how, unlike bitter women writers like Dorothy Parker, she was going to make her name writing happy love poems...
