Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath

by Stephanie Hemphill

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 037583799X
• ISBN13: 9780375837999
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
• Length: 261 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.7" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

More Plath/Hughes exploitation

"Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath", is a book that should not have been written or published. The poetry itself is lame and lackluster, and doesn't do the subject any credit at all. Also, as a fan of Plath myself, I feel Plath, as well as her late husband, have been exploited in the literary far too much. How do you look into someone's marriage and make a verse story out of it? As the author of this waste of time must be an andmirer of Plath, so am I, and I think enough is enough of the Plath/Hughes melodrama. Let's just respect both poets great works.

A testimony to the ongoing power of the poem.

While this verse interpretation of poet Sylvia Plath was intended for teen audiences, it's reviewed here because it'd be a shame to limit its meaning to teens alone. Stephanie Hemphill uses verse herself to interpret the events and influences that summed the life of tragic poet Sylvia Plath. Her approach is unique and her verse a testimony to the ongoing power of the poem.

Our own Sylvia.

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.

AMAZING READ

A beautifully written book that allows the reader to understand the backstory to Plath's life and death. This book is a must read not only for Plath-lovers but for every high school student and college English major. Even readers unfamiliar with Plath will relish the protagonist's unpredictable and engaging journey. Hemphill's writing intoxicating.

Richie's Picks: YOUR OWN, SYLVIA

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