Dead Poets Live
Sylvia Plath
London
Dead Poets Live returned to The Print Room with Denise Gough reading Sylvia Plath.
Sylvia Plath was born in Boston in 1932 and died in London, aged 30, in 1963. In her brief career she produced some of the most rich, authoritative and riveting poetry of the 20th century. The best-known of her poems – among them ‘Lady Lazarus’, ‘Daddy’, ‘The Applicant’, ‘Tulips’ – arrived in the extraordinary torrent of creativity unleashed in her final months, posthumously collected in Ariel. The evening retraced the journey along the route that Plath took, by various poetic turns, to the voice, the unique and definitive voice, of those final poems.
Proceeds from the evening went to Safe Passage.
Performers
Denise Gough astonished audiences and critics in London and New York with her performance in People, Places & Things, for which she was awarded the Olivier Award for Best Actress in 2016 and the Obie Award in 2018. She returned to the National Theatre in 2017, and won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in the revival of Angels in America. Recent TV work includes Guerrilla and the title role in Conor McPherson’s mini-series, Paula. Recent films include Steel Country, 71 and Jimmy’s Hall.
Photos of the event
Poems read
‘I thought that I could not be hurt’
‘The Disquieting Muses’
‘Suicide Off Egg Rock’
‘The Colossus’
‘Mushrooms’
‘The Stones’
‘Stillborn’
‘Tulips’
‘The Moon and the Yew Tree’
‘The Couriers’
‘The Detective’
‘Ariel’
‘Lady Lazarus’
‘The Munich Mannequins’
‘Edge’
Reading list
Collected Poems, ed. Ted Hughes (London, 1981)
Ariel: The Restored Edition, (London, 2004)
Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose and Diary Excerpts, ed. Ted Hughes (London, 1977)
The Bell Jar, (London, 1963)
The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vols. I & II, eds. Steinberg & Kukil (London, 2017–2018)
The Journals of Sylvia Plath, ed. Karen Kukil (London, 2000)
Janet Malcolm, The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (1994)
Banner images and photographs of the event © Tara Rowse.
Image of Sylvia Plath from the Lameyer mss, courtesy of Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.