Your Own, Sylvia: Poetry Review
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hemphill, Stephanie. Your
Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath. New York, NY: Alfred A.
Knopf. ISBN-13: 978-0-375-83799-9
SUMMARY/ANALYSIS
Your
Own,
Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by
Stephanie Hemphill is unlike anything else I have ever read before. This poetic
book can be best described as bibliographical, poetry verse book written about
the well-known author Sylvia Plath, and designed to flow as a novel. In this work
of bibliographic poetry, Hemphill takes past documented events, individuals, and
experiences and enhances them with her own creative interpretation to create
various poems that come to life in seemingly real-life happenings. The poems
within this poetic book cover all types of aspects from the author’s life,
including her issues with frequent sinusitis, a waitressing job she had one
summer, a first date experience, her relationships with various individuals,
and more. Each poem has an interpretive title, the historical individual and dates
used to create this poem (provided beneath the title in italics), the poem
itself (created with interpretive artistry), and footnotes at the bottom of the
page that depict the actual historical event, people involve, facts, and dates.
Every single poem follows this formula, creating a nice and simple reading
experience.
The use of language and line spacing also serve to bring
these poems to life, giving them emotion and pause when necessary. This can be
seen in the poem “A Room of Her Own” which speaks of when Sylvia’s brother,
Warren Plath, left to attend Exeter Academy on a four-year scholarship. As he
waves goodbye to his family and home he sees Sylvia peeking out from what was
his bedroom. Now that he is leaving, Sylvia no longer has to share a room with
his mother and can move into his room, leaving Warren contemplating whether or
not Sylvia would truly miss him or if she is just happy to have her own room. The
poem goes as follows:
A Room
to Her Own
Warren
Plath, 1949
As I wave goodbye,
scholarshipped to Exeter,
Sylvia peers from behind
the blue gingham curtain
of the bedroom that used to be mine.
After years of bunking
with Mother, Sylvia has a bed,
a desk, and a door all her own.
I wonder, as I drive away,
if she’s really sad to see me go.
The language Stephanie Hemphill uses in this poem is
simplistic, mimicking natural speech and the type of language used within one’s
personal, inner thoughts. In the descriptions provided through the poem, the
reader can clearly image Warren looking out the back of a car, staring back
while waving only to find his sister already in his room, no apparent look of sadness
on her face, peeking out from behind the curtain. For anyone who has siblings
this is such a relatable, and almost laughable, moment of knowing that
something that was yours has become your sibling’s and that they are happy
about it, maybe perhaps even a little smug.
Similar to this poem, the other poems within this book do
not use a rhyme scheme, instead implementing words, descriptions, and emotions
conveyed through the constant natural language provided. This made the overall poetic
verse book easy to follow. I truly enjoyed reading this book and will look for
similar works in the future. This made reading a biography so much more interesting
and would be a great way to get children and students to read more biographies.
I can see this book, and others like it, becoming true assets in both Language
Arts and Social Studies classrooms.
POEM PLUS “TAKE 5” ACTIVITIES
This poem from Your
Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath is a perfect example of a
poem found within this verse portrait that demonstrates Stephanie Hemphill’s
remarkable ability to take actual events from the past and create something
that flows as a poetic story. Hemphill has a gift for taking these events and
using her interpretation of a past event to create a poem that feels genuine
and like a real-life experience. This poem provides insight into the inner
thoughts of Sylvia Plath’s teacher and mentor, Mary Ellen Chase, as she
expressed her distaste for the man Sylvia is to marry. Her opinions and reasons
for such distaste (created by Hemphill) serve to truly bring this experience to
life (poem found on page 139).
The
Wrong Man
Professor
Mary Ellen Chase, one of Sylvia’s teachers and mentors at Smith, Spring 1957
I believe she has made a mistake,
married off her brain
to a brute.
Blessed with scholarship,
Sylvia doesn’t need a man.
Still I recommend her to teach at Smith.
Perhaps distance from Britain
will help Sylvia
see Ted more clearly.
His crumpled shirt,
his sly smirk,
how he weighs her down.
Take 5
Activities
1. Briefly
explain to the class what a mentor is. Read the “The Wrong Man” aloud to the
class, telling them to listen carefully to the poem and what it is about.
2. Reread
the poem, this time having the class read the first stanza as if they are having
a conversation with someone, telling them their opinion.
3. Discuss
times where you thought that someone was making a bad choice and how you wanted
to give them advice. Discuss if you chose to tell them or not. Was there a time
when you made a choice that somehow else thought was bad? How should such
situations be handled?
4. Pair
this poem with a picture book about making good choices, such as the book Making Good Choices: A Book About Right and
Wrong by Lisa O. Engelhardt (Abbey Press, 2013). What was done in the book to make right choices?
5. Connect
this poem with another poem about advice such as “A Vulture’s Guide to Good
Manners” by Deborah Ruddell, from the book Today
at the Bluebird Cafe (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2007). What type of advice is the vulture giving?
Comments
Post a Comment