Notes on Ariel: The Restored Edition

Just received this book of Sylvia Plath's poems. First impressions: how exciting to view a facsimile of a ms. of a great poet. None of the five collections of poetry on my shelves contains even one verse by Plath. They all skip from Plato to Poe. Dead white guys. No wonder it's probably been 40 years since I read selections from The Bell Jar. This new collection from HarperCollins begins with a Foreword by Frieda Hughes, Plath's daughter. Then come the 40 poems exactly as arranged in Plath's original "Ariel and other poems" ms. Following the poems in standard print format is the facsimile with all the strike outs and markings by Plath. Interesting additions are a poem titled "The Swarm" with a facsimile, the script Plath wrote for a BBC broadcast, and a section called "Notes" by poet and editor David Semanki on punctuation and word choice differences among various editions of Plath's works. Printed on acid-free paper. Yes! A review will follow later.

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