Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath [Paperback]

Stephanie Hemphill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 23, 2008

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. The book also includes an Author’s Note, some photos, a section describing the source material for each poem, and suggestions for further reading.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up—Through a series of skillfully crafted poems, Hemphill has pieced together a collage of the life and work of the American writer. Arranged chronologically from Plath's birth to the month of her suicide, the poems are written from the points of view of people involved in her life. The voices of Plath's mother; her poet husband, Ted Hughes; and other intimates are interspersed with those of more fleeting acquaintances, each chosen to underscore a unique aspect of the subject's fiery life and tumultuous literary career. Hemphill rises to the challenge of capturing the life of a poet through poetry itself; the end result is a collection of verse worthy of the artist whom it portrays. Form is of paramount importance, just as it was to Plath herself. Many of the selections were created "in the style of" specific Plath poems, while others are scattered with Plath's imagery and language. While the book will prove an apt curriculum companion to Plath's literary works as touted on the jacket, it will also pull the next generation of readers into the myth of Sylvia Plath.—Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* As in Margarita Engle's The Poet Slave of Cuba (2006), this ambitious portrait uses poetry to illuminate the facts of a famous life, in this case, Sylvia Plath's. Although classified as fiction, the book draws from numerous nonfiction sources, including biographies and Plath's journals and letters, and each poem is accompanied by footnotes grounding Hemphill's imagined scenes within the facts. Rather than write in Plath's voice, Hemphill channels the voices of those who knew the poet in chronologically arranged poems, written from the perspective of family members, friends, colleagus, even Plath's doctor. Plath's own voice is evident in the poetic forms, though, with many of the poems written "in the style of" specific works. The result is an intimate, comprehensive, imaginative view of a life that also probes the relationships between poetry and creativity, mental fragility, love, marriage, and betrayal. Some readers may be slowed by the many poems that chronicle the bitter dissolution of Plath's marriage, and readers who know the Plath poems Hemphill references will have an advantage. But Plath's dramatic genius and personal struggles, particularly the difficulties of reconciling the writing life with the roles of wife and mother, have long attracted teen interest, and this accomplished, creative story may ignite new interest in Plath's original works. A bibliography of sources is appended. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition (December 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440239680
• ISBN-13: 978-0440239680
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #723,798 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: YOUR OWN, SYLVIA, May 2, 2007

By 

Richie Partington "Richie's Picks" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath (Hardcover)

All I'd previously known of Sylvia Plath was that she'd been a poet who'd written THE BELL JAR and had committed suicide. All I knew of Ted Hughes is that he wrote poems for adults that I'd never read and THE IRON GIANT which I'd really enjoyed reading. I was not aware of Plath and Hughes having been married.

I know much, much more about them now.

"Madness

Dr. Ruth Barnhouse Beuscher, Sylvia's therapist

Fall 1953

"Repression cuts off

circulation like a tourniquet,

and Sylvia throbs with desire.

"I advise Sylvia to experiment,

to stop fretting over a white

wedding dress. Does this shock

the patient? Not really.

Sylvia has been slicing at her arm,

waiting for someone

to grant her permission. "A junior in college,

she may be ready for this.

'But what would Mother think?'

Sylvia snickers. She wraps a mink stole

of secrets around her shoulders,

luxuriates in playing foul

behind her mother's back.

"Perhaps when she holds back

her desires, her mind

splinters into madness, into deadwood

that we must burn away by electric shock.

I encourage her to release her idea

of the bad girl, punishable for physical contact.

"I ask her to think about herself, not her mother,

about how Sylvia represses Sylvia.

I want to tell her to do what she wants.

I need to help her to let go of her fears."

"Dr. Ruth met with Sylvia for daily psychotherapy sessions, during which Ruth explained to Sylvia her methods and techniques and why she was using them. Sylvia responded well to this sort of inclusion and respect. Dr. Barnhouse Beuscher employed fairly orthodox Freudianism, which entailed leading analysis and discussion about Sylvia's childhood. At the time of the above poem, Sylvia and Dr. Ruth met at McLean Hospital for inpatient treatment, but later they would have sessions at Dr, Beuscher's private practice. They were in contact via phone, letters, or in person every week until Sylvia's death ten years later."

Through inclusion of a book-long series of artistic images, the creators of a graphic novel provide readers with a second dimension -- a visual dimension -- to a story that is also being told with words. In those cases where the images work harmoniously with the text to create an exceptional graphic novel, the reader experiences a piece of literature that is greater in its impact than the sum of its textual and visual elements.

In crafting YOUR OWN, SYLVIA, a striking portrait of the poet who took her own life at an early age nearly half a century ago, author Stephanie Hemphill has similarly provided a second dimension. That second dimension in this case is not visual but textual.

Some may believe that Hemphill's poems, which are conveying the story on one level, constitute the second dimension that adds depth to the factual information appearing throughout the book. Others would propose that, on the contrary, the factual information is the dimension that supplements the poems which are written with the guidance of primary source materials and from the points of view of an amazingly large cast of family members, friends, colleagues, and mental health professionals who knew this a poet who, like a shooting star, burned brightly and was then gone.

What cannot be argued is that, like a graphic novel done to perfection, the author has intertwined these two integral textual dimensions of the story in a manner that makes this portrait of Sylvia Plath consistently intriguing and compelling with all the power and edge of the best tragic, contemporary verse novel.

In fact, there are events within this tale that are so horrific that it is sometimes necessary to remind oneself that they took place in the real world.

Interspersed with the poems from the various points of view are several which are co-titled "Imagining Sylvia Plath," and are each written in the style of one of Sylvia's better-known poems.

"...She blocks Ted out, the rake, her children's

Unfaithful father, invisible as the man who draws

The stage curtain, who ties up the show.

She doesn't need him

To tell her when to begin, when to end.

"Poetry taps beat after beat

From her typewriter keys.

She studies the page, astonished

At her maniac poems, buzzing real as an ear.

She cannot send them back.

"She cannot remember writing them down.

She can only remember the way

The words felt, honest as a morning moon.

And she is their creator,

Standing alone in her laurel crown.

"She escapes this way.

Her early-morning pen

Breaks the kill hours, cleanses her in blood,

Burns the wrinkles from her face.

She radiates language.

"She will not be shut up, will not be eclipsed."

Sure, at times it is like staring in fascination at a terrible accident happening in slow motion, but there is no question that YOUR OWN, SYLVIA will be responsible for bringing the words of Sylvia Plath to the attention of a new generation. It is a haunting and true story that certainly grabbed and held my attention.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Think you know about Sylvia Plath?, June 30, 2011

By 

Wannabe Librarian "Crys" (AL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath (Paperback)

Loved every page!!! This was a refreshing look into the life of Plath, told through poems from those who actually knew her.

I find her fascinating. I don't know what it is about her, not her poetry, but her. Each poem ends with a footnote. These are important! I actually found reading the footnote before each poem extremely helpful.

The poems are from everyone: her brother, her mother, her father, her grandmother, her grandfather, her therapist, her downstairs neighbor, etc.

This takes about 45 minutes to read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Our own Sylvia., June 10, 2008

By 

Deborah Sandford "Marian the Librarian" (Madison, NJ, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath (Hardcover)

Forty-five years after her death, Sylvia-Plath-mystique is alive and well. This story of Plath's life, from childhood to tragedy, is told in verse, purportedly in Plath's own style. Hemphill, an outstanding poet in her own right, admirably gives more than suitable voice to those who knew Sivvy--her mother, brother, friends, editors, therapist, husband and Sylvia herself, defining Sylvia's hopes and aspirations, fears, vulnerabilities and dichotomies. Each poem is titled and the point of view and speaker are made clear. Factual end notes enhance the biographical aspect. "Your Own, Sylvia" reads like a novel, a good one. Readers are rewarded with an intimate look at this remarkable young woman and brilliant poet, and may deduce that she was a modern female, ahead of her time. The nature of this book is that Sylvia's suicide becomes less frightening, less intimidating, less sensational, allowing readers to embrace Sylvia and accept her as their own.