Instead of a birthday anniversary, it’s a memorial for the poet Sylvia Plath. She was 30 when she made her final suicide attempt. Did she want it to succeed? Some of her biographers say no. But her preparations were elaborate and her life ended, February 11, 1962. From childhood, the poet had suffered from depression. It was over.
Sylvia Plath, the Pulitzer Prize winner (posthumously) lived like a spark. Or a short-fused stick of dynamite. Beautiful and talented, the Marilyn Monroe of American poetry sprang from a family of brilliant scholars. (Sylvia’s own IQ was an astonishing 160.) Her father was a biology professor at the University of Boston.
Otto Plath was an entomologist, specializing in bumble bees. At home, he kept a few hives of honey bees. In the mid-1980s, when PBS filmed a documentary of Sylvia Plath’s life, they invited my oldest brother, David, to play the role of beekeeper Otto Plath. Donning a beekeeper’s uniform, my brother comes and goes throughout the documentary, as Otto Plath himself seemed to, in the eyes of young Sylvia. I found the documentary on YouTube, existing in six pieces. Here is a very short clip with my brother, mimicking Otto, as Sylvia remembered him.
Watch the series, on YouTube, beginning with the first segment here. The hour-long documentary is comprised of six short pieces. I don’t know why they exist in this way, but I hope that you persist and watch the entire story of a beekeeper’s daughter.
This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing!
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She was an amazing poet. I have a link in the post to her “Beekeeper’s Daughter” – you may like it, too.
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whoa, that was too early in the morning to read that, great post though, thanks
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Sorry. (I should have given a trigger warning and a safe space.)
Pretty sad story, eh?
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Quite the poem, thank you for sharing this, Ron.
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Thanks Ron, what an amazing poem. You always right such interesting posts!
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This was a very creepy piece! I didn’t know this about her dad, and I wonder the influence to write the poem here. Thank you—-I turned 63 on the 10th
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im a big fan of Sylvia Plath. thanks for sharing or i would have missed.
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Jeepers Ron! I am glad that we are now, at least in parts of our world, shedding the stigma attached to mental illness, and becoming more aware of how fixed patterns of dysfunction along with epigenetic effects inhibit healthy childhood development. One wonders, reading this piece, just what influence Plath Sr. had on his daughter. For a remedy, may I suggest readers of this blog entry immediately fire up Netflix and watch “Won’t You Be My Neighbour”??!! No beekeeping link, just the human one.
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Thanks. I hope that we have turned that corner. No one among is truly completely healthy and illness aren’t restricted to the visible infirmities. I’v known many people who have suffered in ways similar to Sylvia Plath’s chronic depression. Fortunately, being open about the disease – and the newer medications – have helped them live normal, productive, content lives.
I appreciate the reminder about the Mr Rogers documentary. It has an extremely high rating among all viewers (8.7/10). I haven’t seen it yet, but from your mention, I will now.
Ron
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