Your Own, Sylvia

Bibliography

Hemphill, Stephanie. Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath. New York: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2007. 978-0440239680

Review

Your Own, Sylvia portrays a mix of poetry that contains concrete meaning as in the things Sylvia should do to be the perfect wife in “Patriarchy” (Hemphill, pg. 41-42) and abstract meaning with “Demolition” (pg. 24-25) in reference to Sylvia’s sexuality through the images of a car ride. The poems’ meter is steady and allows for the lines to be read in a fluid manner. Most of the poems have a natural, stronger stress on the last syllable of each line.

Hemphill uses rhyme throughout several poems in this book such as “talk…locks…shocks…blocks” in “Golden Girl” (pg. 91) or in “Theodore” (pg. 118-119) with “worth…birth…earth”. The repetition of words at the beginning of each stanza play an affect on the sound of the poem. In “Ski Trip” three stanzas in a row begin with “Sylvia” (Hemphill, pg. 58) which plays on the fact that Dick Norton was fascinated with her.

Figurative language is used to enhance the content of the poems in Your Own, Sylvia and bring more intense meaning delicately. “Sylvia’s skin tans brown as the beach sand…fourteen-karat hair blazes like the noon sky” show two examples of similes used to describe Sylvia through resilient comparisons. Sylvia is personified by Richard Sassoon as an insect who “flap(s) against my web, yet are grateful to be confined” (Hemphill, pgs. 98-99) helping the reader to draw the conclusion that although Sylvia still wants to flap her wings, she is secretly happy to be in love.

The senses are evoked within Your Own, Sylvia through Hemphill’s poetry. In “Demolition” the line of “burnt tire fumes choking her throat” awaken the reader’s sense of smell so that they can picture themselves sitting close to the track of a car race.

Your Own, Sylvia is skillfully written and so wonderfully tells the story of Sylvia Plath’s life. I felt very moved by this book and feel that the overall serious mood are a perfect parallel to Sylvia’s life.

Poetry and Connection

Selfish

Mommy gave Sylvia

a blue cloth book

without words

where Sylvia puts words

each day.

(from Selfish, Hemphill, pg. 17)

Read the entire poem of “Selfish” as a class and have a journal (preferably blue!) as a prop. Give students about five minutes to write in their journal. They are given the freedom to choose their topic of writing or style of writing (i.e. poetry).