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Voices & Visions: Sylvia Plath [VHS]

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I've hunted down and viewed just about all of the television pieces put together about the Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Sylvia Plath, and this is by far the most informative and poignant collage of her life ever put to celluloid. It seamlessly combines rare photographs, beautifully staged and performed reenactments, amazing audio recordings of Plath reading her poetry and speaking in interviews, and informative commentaries by her friends and family (most notably by the British film critic A. Alvarez and her recently deceased mother Aurelia Plath). This is a must-view for any Plath scholar and admirer.

This audio was recorded for the Plath Lover--Me!
The listener has the joy of hearing Plath's own voice reading her poetry, laughing, talking about Ted Hughes, Frieda, and hearing about how she has no empathy for the poet who has no direction, form, or discipline.

Plath's voice is so elegantly formal and beautiful--one would think she was born in the country she so dearly loved, Great Britain.

The listener will hear Sylvia's mother through much of the recording.

"I sometimes wonder why Sylvia did not write about the present more--instead of dwelling on the past that hurt her so."
-Aurelia Plath

"Sylvia used two words continually--Always and Never. I have never seen anybody reach the enormous heights of joy that Sylvia did--or the absolute depths of dispair." -Aurelia Plath

The listener will have the opportunity to hear Sylvia's teachers, contemporaries, and critics giving their own insights about the legendary poet--

"In the poem "Daddy" Sylvia is not quite sure if she wants to take her father apart or reconstruct him." -Plath Historian

"She was absolutely brilliant and a genius, but when she was jealous, she was completely absent from reason." -A friend of Plaths

Towards the end of the audio--one of the narrator's is talking about Plath's life in Devon, England--

"This is where she finds her voice. This is where her marriage begins unraveling. Ted Hughes gives her an assignment--'Write about the tree in the cemetory acoss the steet.' he says.
Hughes must have been stunned by the outcome--the poem becomes
"The Moon and the Yew Tree."
This is the light of the mind/cold and planetory/the trees of the mind are black/the light is blue/the grasses unload their griefs on my feet/as if I were God/prickling my ankles and murmuring their humility/fumy spirted mists inhabit this place/separated from my house by a row of headstones/I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

Out of all of Plath's remarkable poems--That one single verse appears to be the most powerful--the fire rolling off the tongue--the breath of the poet upon world--the true voice of Sylvia Plath.

"I simply cannot see where there is to get to."

***Note*** This is one of the best resources about Plath I have found thus far!