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The Community of Writers: Rediscovering Sylvia Plath with Victoria Chang & Matthew Zapruder
Sunday April 28 @ 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm PDT
From the organizers:
“When we think of Sylvia Plath, it’s easy to see the image of the electric confessional poet who took her own life. Her tragic personal history, including her marriage to Ted Hughes, can easily obscure her poetry. But when we return to the work itself, we see a poet of genius, who mapped her struggles to find a completely original poetic voice.
“In this Short Course, we’ll close-read Plath’s poetry, to learn from her singularity. We’ll begin with an overview of Plath’s poetry leading up to her creative breakthrough, then focus the remaining four sessions on close reading poems from her posthumous, best-known book Ariel. We’ll try to understand together where she came from, her essential innovations, and her effect on the poetry that came after her. Was she truly a “confessional” poet? How does she make meaning from the turmoil of her life, and the time in which she wrote? What were her poetic innovations? How can we understand her poems as something more than mere autobiography? What aspects of her poetry continue to influence poems today? In addition to the poems from Ariel and after, we’ll look at drafts of her poems from her archives, to explore her writing process, so that we can learn from her creative process.
“Each session will begin with an hour of discussion between Victoria Chang and Matthew Zapruder, including background and close readings, followed by a short break. We will then reconvene for our second hour in which we will discuss your thoughts from the chat, answer questions, and offer further insights. We will end each session with an optional poetry writing prompt based on Plath’s poetry.
“Dates & Times: Online Sundays from April 28 to May 19, 2024 with a Bonus Session on May 22. Main sessions run from 4 pm-6 pm (Pacific) with optional discussion groups to follow.
- Sunday, April 28, 2024
- Sunday, May 5, 2024
- Sunday, May 12, 2024
- Sunday, May 19, 2024
- Wednesday, May 22, 2024
“Note: For those who are interested, intimate Zoom discussion groups (Virtual Houses) will meet after each session and on subsequent Saturdays at 10 AM.”
Register here: https://communityofwriters.org/register-for-rediscovering-sylvia-path/