Stephanie Hemphill

The author interprets the people, events, influences and art that made up the brief life of Sylvia Plath.

A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath

Your Own, Sylvia

i don’t know what i expected a book of poems about the best poems written to be like ? they did not stand up as tall as they needed to. 

Emma Younger

Lisa Collins

I’m not the biggest poetry fan in the world. I would go as far to say sometimes I loathe it. I like things that get to the point, and poetry tends to beat around the bush. I love to try and convince myself I like poetry, though. I often get books of poetry from the library, take a couple looks at them, and then turn them in again without reading more than a few poems.
I picked up this book of poetry because it’s about Sylvia Plath and her life. I’m a fan of Plath’s works (to an extent), but I love even more to read about her life, short as it may have been. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into with this particular collection.

I’ll say right now that this book pleasantly surprised me. It’s made up of a series of poems, in the point of view of various people from Plath’s life, that come together to document her entire life from beginning to bitter end. The poems themselves were nice to read. They weren’t trying too hard to be poetic, yet they were “pretty”, as many poems are… and got down to the nitty-gritties without too much fuss about trying to make things socially acceptable. It’s a challenge to be honest and unbiased when writing about someone’s life (even your own) and I really think Hemphill did it effortlessly.

Most of the poems were accompanied by footnotes with additional information, which I really loved. Also, I really enjoyed the multiple perspectives. I don’t think this book would have worked if it were from the perspective of just one or two people. There’s an array of people such as family, friends, doctors, et cetera. It really gave variety and a large scope of opinions.

While I have many good things to say about this book I do have one rather large bone to pick with the author and publisher. I’m absolutely confused by the genre of the book. Is it Fiction or Non-Fiction? It’s officially published as Non-Fiction because it’s about real events, but the author (in her letter to readers) says it’s Fiction. I’m torn as to what to label it, because while it is about real events, the author stood in as the people in Sylvia’s life. How can something be Non-Fiction when the words were never really said by the people in the story? Anyway, since it’s published as Non-Fiction I’ll label it as such.

Aside from the genre problem I’m very fond of this book. (Honestly, the genre doesn’t make that much of a difference.) It was interesting to read and presented Sylvia Plath’s life in such a way that gave the full story without a bunch of fluff. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes poetry, Sylvia Plath, or the Non-Fiction genre. I really think it’s worth the read no matter what you like, though. I hope to own this one in the future.

Your Own, Sylvia A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath