jonkers rare books
“I love you like fury... your own sylvia”
2. “saturday morning, oct. 6” [6 October 1956]. An exceptional, long letter from Sylvia Plath to Ted Hughes showing in great detail their collaborative creative processes, and predicting their shared future as great poets. With a typed, signed poem ‘Street Song’ sent to Hughes for his criticism. Eight typed sides of blue letter paper (four sheets, folded horizontally, approximately 1,900 words), the letter signed “your own sylvia”, and the poem signed “love, s.”. Plath opens with news of a letter from The Atlantic’s Peter Davison, to whom she had written a week before to introduce Ted’s work to him and ask for advice about literary affairs. She asks Ted to not “get too optimistic (I say this, for it’s hard for me not to, and one of us must keep that icy head if all things we handle are fire-and-icily)”. Nev - ertheless, “peter’s letter was like a plum-cake of helps, hints and interest for both of us,” and they were interested in both Ted’s poems and his children’s fables. Therefore Plath resolves to “take out two whole days and type your fables and then Off to Mr. Davison.” Davison also enclosed some advice about copyright laws and the Atlantic’s novel competition; “Peter, my darling Teddy, is that rare rare good editor type person who is utterly unselfish... It would be so nice, all of us being so young, if he could help us, and we, in turn, could give him a reputation”. She then writes on her workload, the study of Chaucer and St Augustine, and the need to “keep a hard head, not panicking at the seemingly endless stacks of reading”. She also suggests that her first collection of poems be titled Firesong, and would have an epigraph by Yeats. The remaining three pages are mainly taken up with Plath editing and commenting on Ted’s work, revealing in full their creative process. Responding to a poem earlier sent by Ted, she writes “I love your poem on the change- ling. But please leave off at: ‘Fondly I smile/Into your hideous eyes.’ Have I your permission? If so, I’ll type it up. It’s too good a poem-as-poem to get slick and com- mercial-ironic.” She also comments on a plot Hughes sent her in a previous letter (”Your new plot is eminently worthy of True Confessions”), and on his continuing efforts at a TV play (”nothing you write should Ever Be Torn Up or Mangled. Save it, bring it to London for me to read”). Plath provides in depth notes on ‘Horses Of The Sun’ across the next three paragraphs, showing how collaborative their work on Ted’s poems was, “Send it back, revised, and I’ll type out final copy. To go through piece by piece: again, I don’t think ‘horrible
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