Citation: Hemphill, S.(2007).Your own, sylvia: a verse portatit of sylvia plath. New York, NY: Knopf Books for Young Readers.
Impressions: This is one of the very best books I have ever read. Loving poetry and Syliva Plath may have a lot to do with the adoration for this book. It uses verses that are similar to the style of Plath's to describe her life. I very fond of the different voices from her mother, friends and boyfriends who assist in the narration of this book. This a very unique way a telling about someones life. Bravo!
Reviews:
"Plath's own voice is evident in the poetic forms, though, with many of the poems written "in the style of" specific works. The result is an intimate, comprehensive, imaginative view of a life that also probes the relationships between poetry and creativity, mental fragility, love, marriage, and betrayal. Some readers may be slowed by the many poems that chronicle the bitter dissolution of Plath's marriage, and readers who know the Plath poems Hemphill references will have an advantage. But Plath's dramatic genius and personal struggles, particularly the difficulties of reconciling the writing life with the roles of wife and mother, have long attracted teen interest, and this accomplished, creative story may ignite new interest in Plath's original works.”-Gillian Engberg
Engberg, G. (2007). Your own sylvia: verse portrait of sylvia plath (book review). Booklist, 103(12). Retrieved from Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database.
“With her brilliance, marriage to a famous fellow poet, and dramatic suicide, poet Sylvia Plath quickly became a legendary literary figure. Hemphill tells the story of that legendary life in poems, many of them closely modeled on Plath’s own verses, written from the viewpoint of the people in Sylvia’s life or in a third-person imagining of Plath’s own experience. Though there’s an un-Plathian grammatical carelessness to some of the writing, the poems are generally capably executed, especially in their technical underpinnings (the explanatory notes attached to each poem are inclined to be randomly if genuinely informative); the author clearly takes Plath’s side, but the poems honestly acknowledge the poet’s unlikable tendencies toward entitlement and superiority. It’s certainly an intriguing biographical approach, and teen fans of confessional poetry in general and Plath in particular will find it inviting; its main achievement is imitative, though, and readers ready for these verses will reach to their originals, so the book is likelier to contribute to young writers’ own experimental projects than to a readerly understanding of Plath or poetry.” –Deborah Stevenson
Stevenson, D. (2007). Your own sylvia: verse portrait of sylvia plath (book review). The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, 60(1). Retrieved from Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database.
Library Setting: In the library, the programmer could introduce some of Plath's poems to the patrons. On a much smaler scale, ask the patrons to write three poems that could descibe their usual day. The programmer could ask the patrons to describe their small daily task vivdly as seen in this book. Plath was also known for winning writing contest at a young age. The programmer could also have a youth writing contest for the patrons. There could be different categories such as short story, poetry and play.
