Sylvia Plath Reading Her Poetry

Caedmon TC 1544. Sylvia Plath reads her poetry. This selection is from side two of the album.
Readings are:
The Disquieting Muses
Spinster
Parliament Hill Fields
The Stones
Leaving Early
Candles
Mushrooms
Berck-Plage
The Surgeon at 2:00AM

[@sarahimara4099]

I've fallen in love with her voice.

[@nancyrose8028]

Me, too! First time I heard it, I felt so many emotions, I cried.

[@Human_Evolution-]

That's hawt.

[@FooFoo_CuddlyPoops]

0:00 The Disquieting Muses 3:04 Spinster 4:29 Parliament Hill Fields 7:34 The Stones 10:11 Leaving Early 12:35 Candles 14:45 Mushrooms 15:46 Berck-Plage 22:04 The Surgeon at 2 a.m.

[@hannahvandervelde883]

Foo Foo Cuddlypoops My hero!

[@peterlynch2193]

I love this recording, I have it on tape packed away, somewhere. Thanks so much for posting!

[@peterlynch2193]

This is my very favourite audio compilation of her reading her poetry! I have an ancient audiotape of this recording, that I taped off of a record from the library, in 1986! Still plays......but listening to this on YT, just might preserve it for a while longer. My favourite poet. Thanks so much for posting!

[@leatate9815]

Thanks, I appreciate hearing Sylvia’s voice read her poems. Such a wonderful teacher about living life.

[@yggdrasil9039]

A priceless historical document.

[@abooswalehmosafeer173]

Unteachable in everything I aspire Yet learning unquenchable dire No pretence nor presumption Sylvia was so so clever and so lonely and So much anger... could only exit as so it escaped. Her voice carries the anger the protest the beseeching her loneliness A voice I like So much had she learnt and absorbed and so much she poured into her poetry. A still pebble... A microcosm into a Macrocosm Yet lost and lonely Wonder awe I like Sylvia"s Voice...

[@simonperry8569]

Berck-Plage is sublime. To maintain that vivid imagery over a long poem, without exhausting the reader, is sheer genius.

[@barrylamb1963]

You can feel the longing and the sadness.

[@73kdt]

Thank you for the up load, it's wonderful to hear the voice of such a remarkable poet..

[@sicilyny5375]

Her words are like painting...each stroke of a brush against palate...flows at places..bold and harsh in others. I get it!!

[@michaelalpert5019]

I am happy to hear Sylvia Plath's voice, but I think some of the poems, "Candles" in particular, are much more intimate and welcoming in intent than comes through in Plath's mannered rendition. In the 50s and early 60s, many poets felt the need to recite in a certain crisp literary way, which did not always fit the emotional content of their poems. At her death, Sylvia Plath had much to say about the world, not just about her personal anguish; her suicide was a tragedy for poetry.

[@sicilyny5375]

Sometimes the way a poem is read can change the feel of it. I much rather read the words and hear the voice of the poems thru the words.

[@lakeshagadson357]

whoever is reading this poem i like them for reading it.

[@reaganwiles_art]

She has meant so much to me. Her poetry has changed my life. You don't know yadayadayada. This is amazing poetry. She is one of the best.

[@teril733]

So inspiring to hear her.

[@teril733]

I suppose the best way to say it would be that hearing her words (that I've grown to love) in her own voice is powerful for me as a writer of poetry. She was definitely troubled, yet brilliant.

[@Sarah-r3nee]

Love her poetry!

[@nagusd]

Thanks for your comment. I intend to upload more in the near future.

[@casinodelosdesertores9672]

Just love it, voice and reading so clear and complex

[@circlesinthenight3141]

I love hearing her voice

[@spinningreelsofrhyme]

She delivered her poems with confidence and as if she was declaring that which could give her true worth, she could never find otherwise...She was definitely troubled, and you can hear that in her voice too, but the delivery just further shows how important her writings must have been to her.

[@cmgold00]

Happy Birthday, Sylvia Plath!

[@martin4458]

What a powerful voice.

[@Liara_I_Sorry]

I have a personal recording of Sylvia Plath reading Edge, if anyone is so keen to have a listen. No? All mine then I guess.

[@animexoaccessory]

Yes, yes, yes.

[@nancyrose8028]

Did you post it?

[@nancyrose8028]

I would love to hear it!

[@anatorres4926]

Sure.

[@nancyrose8028]

I would love to hear it! Where did you get it?

[@DerekHunterDHChaosRiddler]

This is much better to listen to than that (boring!) doc one will see to the right ("Sylvia Plath part 1 of 6," etc) All that doc does is celebrate Plath while marginalizing her and boring you ... Listen to her voice, the strength and fragility saying words of complete and perfect individual expression. I love this woman (Plath).

[@nagusd]

Sorry James, I know little about the details of this disc. Caedmon recorded many interesting poets during the fifties and sixties. How many discs were pressed I couldn't say. I came across this disc at a record show a few years ago. It is, certainly, an uncommon disc. Thanks for your comment.

[@ZOGGYDOGGY]

The Anglo-American poet Sylvia Plath explores the darker human feelings through the delineation of objects and sometimes apparently trivial domestic events. Her verse, ironic in tone and irregular in form, also uses myths and the painting of Rousseau, Gaugin, Klee and De Chirico as points of departure. Notes Recorded at the Poetry Room, Harvard College Library, 1958-1959 and by BBC Records, 1960-1962. Caedmon: CDL51544.

[@pinkpanther7030]

Pity she left us so young...I would like to know what now Sylvia. You are deeply surreal. Your stones...pink torso...and nostril prickles...spilt tears...🙄

[@sicilyny5375]

I see some similarity with Emily Dickenson..the repeat of a word meant to emphasis and the use of nature..nice!!

[@emr2425introibo]

Thanks for loading this.

[@K98876]

My father was born in 1919 and I grew up drinking ovaltine I still buy it ❤

[@arati.behera]

Is it ! So tantalizing.

[@jimrader5299]

a genius who embraced despair, but who in today's poetry approaches the passion of her invective?

[@ExxylcrothEagle]

what the fuck planet is this??? i love it. i wanna buy a concert tshirt. plath tour '21 hahaha

[@oksks]

muchas gracias

[@ktiffy9213]

the 'disquieting muses', is on par with Shakespeare's siloquies, actually transcendent.

[@h.e.riddleton1373]

If Shakespeare had a sister...

[@rafiakhan8037]

touchinggggggggg

[@aidou97]

I want this EP

[@moganhoow]

Where would I find this (or any) record of Sylvia?

[@nancyrose8028]

Try the website: "A Celebration, this is", a site dedicated to Sylvia Plath by Peter K. Steinberg. There is a link to the University of Chicago where you can order a CD.

[@jamesantell1026]

I recently ordered this same LP and was wondering if you had any information about it. eg. where it was recorded, which year, how many disks were made/sold (it seems to be quite rare)? Thanks

[@nancyrose8028]

Did you receive the LP?

[@thehouseon9thstreet]

Is your turntable at 33 1/3? Getting a little helium in her tone. But yes thanks for uploading!

[@nancyrose8028]

Huh?

[@harrisonsmith-christopher5033]

I love how the crash course video about plath has more view then this? weird .

[@2000coco]

💚💞😭

[@khalidbaloch2594]

i like much

[@ExxylcrothEagle]

I wish we could hear Peter O'Toole read this. that would be nutoole ts... not to take the female voice away at all. I am just saying to get weird it would be meta playful to hear O'

[@khalidbaloch2594]

any body tell me about her?

[@h.e.riddleton1373]

Sylvia was born in 1932 to Aurelia and Otto Plath. She had a sprightly childhood and very much liked to swim and go to camp and make art. When she was eight, her father died of complications of diabetes that he had believed to be cancer. His father was the professor of Sylvia's mother. He was an entomologist, which would later become the inspiration for Sylvia's bee poems that were the original plans on how she wanted to close Ariel... Frieda, her daughter, would restore the original order of the poems as Sylvia imagined them. Ted marketed Ariel with sensationalism, allowing her suicide to unfold through her closing words-- shutting at the frail hope she, indeed, had...

[@h.e.riddleton1373]

in 1932 to Aurelia and Otto Plath. She had a sprightly childhood and very much liked to swim and go to camp and make art. When she was eight, her father died of complications of diabetes that he had believed to be cancer. His father was the professor of Sylvia's mother. He was an entomologist, which would later become the inspiration for Sylvia's bee poems that were the original plans on how she wanted to close Ariel... Frieda, her daughter, would restore the original order of the poems as Sylvia imagined them. Ted marketed Ariel with sensationalism, allowing her suicide to unfold through her closing words-- shutting at the frail hope she, indeed, had...

[@arati.behera]

Why do u post that she committed suicide. She is within us.

[@bebejackson5724]

Didn't she kill herself???

[@casinodelosdesertores9672]

yes she did

[@kelman727]

Sounds like someone trying to imitate an English accent and failing.

[@Plathianloner]

kelman727 Ever hear a Boston accent?

[@michaelsudduth8916]

It's called transatlantic.

[@ayshazaheen3402]

It's called Transatlantic accent; a blend of British and American accent.

[@NaughtyVampireGod]

William F Buckley; Robert Lowell . ..

[@sicilyny5375]

That is the East coast..yrs ago they sounded like England and American combined..hardly today.

[@sherlockholmeslives.1605]

Writing poetry was a thing Sylvia Plath could NOT do!

[@nicobeing]

I wonder what is encouraging you to visit each video on Sylvia and post angry comments. Why not choose something you enjoy to watch? She's dead, you can't touch her now. Move along. Find what you like and immerse yourself in it.

[@sherlockholmeslives.1605]

I have got learning difficulties Nicole. I am NOT good with words! I am a child who likes to play! Sometimes I defend other people from nasty comments by suggesting such trolls grow up. I actually had problems during my puberty, despite my parents telling the psychiatrist otherwise in late life. She ( Sylvia Plath ) may be a genius for all I know! I failed in poetry because all my poems are shit! I like William McGonagall and hate all the time I wasted trying to write poetry and I hate how people rightfully hated my poetry and liked or loved Sylvia Plath's poetry! things like that I am sensitive to and those situations irritate me. Thanks for your kindness and patience with my immature and attention drawing comments! I need to GROW UP! With Best Wishes, Nicole! Cheers - Mike.

[@nancyrose8028]

You seem to be pretty good with words in your lengthy reply. What kind of learning difficulty is it that you think you have, if I may ask?

[@sherlockholmeslives.1605]

Thanks for the reply, Nancy! I certainly can NOT compose poetry! Lol! I just have not got the openness of freedom of expression and the plasticity with words to create true poetry! With Best Wishes! Happy Christmas and New Year to You and Your Family! Cheers - Mike.