READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2006

Please click below (unless otherwise noted) to download, print off, and/or read the following materials:

Subject Sylvia, by Meghan O'Rourke, from Poetry, via the Poetry Daily website.

Sylvia Plath and Confessional Poetry: A Reconsideration, by M. D. Uroff, from Iowa Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1977, pp. 104-15.

The Self in the World: The Social Context of Sylvia Plath's Late Poems, by Pamela J. Annas, from Women's Studies, Vol. 7, Nos. 1-2, 1980, pp. 171-83.

"’Viciousness in the Kitchen’:Sylvia Plath's Domestic Poetry”, by Jeannine Dobbs, from Modern Language Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1977, pp. 11-25.

The Big Strip Tease: Female Bodies and Male Power in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath, by Kathleen Margaret Lant, from Contemporary Literature.

If time allows, we may begin our discussion of Anne Sexton this period, so you may wish to begin reading the following poems from The Collected Poems of Anne Sexton:

Introductory Essay by Maxine Kumin, "How It Was," p. xix
"You, Doctor Martin," p. 3
"Music Swims Back to Me," p. 6
"Said the Poet to the Analyst," p. 12
"Her Kind," p. 15
"Elegy in the Classroom," p. 32
"For John, who Begs Me Not to Enquire Further," p. 34
"The Double Image," p. 35
"The Division of Parts," p. 42
"The Truth the Dead Know," p. 49
"All My Pretty Ones," p. 49
"To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph," p. 53
"The Starry Night," p. 53
"The Operation," p. 56
"The Abortion," p. 61
"With Mercy for the Greedy," p. 62
"The Fortress," p. 66
"Flee on Your Donkey," p. 97
"Sylvia's Death," p. 126
"Menstruation at Forty," p. 137
"Wanting to Die," p. 142
"Little Girl, My String Bean," p. 145
"Live," p. 167
"For My Lover, Returning to His Wife," p. 189
"The Break," p. 190
"Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator," p. 198
"Eighteen Days Without You," p. 265
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," p. 224
"Rumpelstiltskin," p. 233
"Cinderella," p. 255
"Briar Rose," p. 290
"Rats Live on No Evil Star," p. 359
"The Furies," p. 363

Don't forget to post your blog posts for the week of 9/12/06-9/18/06 no later than midnight on Monday, September 18, 2006. And speaking of which, here is this week's memoir prompt from The Autobiography Box:

What was your first day at middle school like? Some say "The Awkward Age" starts at 12 and ends with death. Did you feel lonely or unhappy making that important transition from childhood to teenage years? Was there anything or anybody who made it easier?