[Image description: A birthday card Sylvia Plath sent to her mother, Aurelia, with an illustration of a Viking woman riding a horse] -For my friend Stephanie Cawley, another great Scorpio, another great poet, whose birthday is today Yesterday would have been Sylvia Plath’s 89th birthday. As usual, I celebrated by writing and reading about her life and work. In this way, you could say every day is Sylvia Plath’s birthday for me, except it’s not. There is a particular energy I feel every October 27. I’m reminded that Plath should have lived a long life. In a letter she wrote to her therapist Ruth Beuscher on July 30, 1962, she said that by the time she was 50, she wanted “to be very experienced & have purple hair & be very wise & have interesting children & piles of money” (you can read this letter & many others, btw, in Plath’s second volume of
Scorpio Season
Beautifully written and refreshes all of us Plath-philes who wonder "What if...?"
This essay arrived in my inbox when I needed it. Thank you, Emily and Sylvia (and Maggie Nelson).