Sylvia Plath | Autograph letter signed, to Edith and William Hughes, "hoping to finish a book of poems", 28 April 1958

Sylvia Plath

Autograph letter signed, to Edith and William Hughes ("Hello There!")

taking advantage of an unexpected day off spent reading Henry James's The Bostonians in bed, with news of their writing ("...I am hoping to finish a book of poems & start a novel by next fall...") and describing spring in New England, 1 page, folio (253 x 204mm), blue airmail stationery, [337 Elm Street, Northampton, MA,] 28 April [1958], torn along left edge with loss of c.7 letters

"...We have borrowed the lovely green park next door as our private garden for daily walks. It is made up of grassy stretches, pink flowering trees, a little wood of elms & a tall wood of pines, and a formal garden. The red, pink & yellow tulips are up, and daffodils, bluets, grape hyacinths & phlox. We found a pheasant lives in the wood, & the grass is covered in big red robins & the trees full of squirrels..."

SYLVIA PLATH EVOKES NEW ENGLAND SPRING. Her second semester at Smith had, in some ways, been easier than the first. She took more pleasure in her teaching and greater recognition of her poetry; ten days before writing this letter she had recorded an interview and a selection of poems for the Library of Congress. Nevertheless, she was struggling with depression. Plath's moods were often closely attuned to the weather and the coming of spring was a vital symbol for her in life as well as in her art (although she found the cold of New England easier than the darkness of an English winter). Plath's own arrangement of the Ariel poems ended with 'Wintering', so the sequence as a whole concluded on the line:

"The bees are flying. They taste the spring."