YOUR OWN, SYLVIA by Stephanie Hemphill

Hemphill, Stephanie. YOUR OWN, SYLVIA a verse portrait of Sylvia Plath. 2007. New York:  Alfred A Knopf. ISBN 9780375837999

Audio book:

Hemphill, Stephanie. YOUR OWN, SYLVIA a verse portrait of Sylvia Plath. 2009. Read by Paul Beohmer, Cassandra Campbell, Mark Deakins, Robertson Dean, Susan Duerden, Justine Eyre, Kimberly Farr, Stephanie Hemphill, Rosalyn Landor, Ann Marie Lee, John Lee, Carrington MacDuffie, Arthur Morey, Kirsten Potter, Kate Reading, and Simon Vance. New York: Listening Library. ISBN 9780739380871

Before writing Your Own, Sylvia, Stephanie Hemphill immersed herself in the life and works of Sylvia Plath, and then resurrected her.  In roughly 200 poems of varying length, meter, and mood, Hemphill reveals to us our “own Sylvia.” Her poetry mimics Plath’s own style of free verse.  Under the titles of her poems, Hemphill tells us whose perspective the poem reflects and the date or year when the event or events take place.  She writes poems through the eyes of Plath’s parents, brother, best friends, boyfriends, college roommates, doctors, teachers, and husband, Ted Hughes, also a poet.  In the audio version, numerous voice talents read the poems to convey the varied personalities.  Additionally, Hemphill herself reads the footnotes that are helpful in fleshing out the real situations that inspired the poetry.

Though Hemphill makes clear that this is a work of fiction, I was awestruck by its feel of authenticity.   As I was listening to the book, a memory of a movie I had watched several years ago came to mind.  When I looked up the movie, sure enough, it was about Sylvia Plath.  Kudos to Ms. Hemphill for achieving her goal of painting a recognizable portrait of her subject.  She begins with a poem about Plath’s birth through the eyes of her mother, Aurelia Plath, and  then proceeds to reincarnate the major events of Plath’s life including her father’s death, her education, writing, depression and attempted suicide, her college years, her move to England, marriage to Ted Hughes, birth of their children, divorce, and suicide at age 30.  

Hemphill won the 2008 Printz Award and the 2008 Myra Cohn Livingston Award for this verse novel.   Clearly influenced by Plath’s talent, each poem contains the range of emotion that you would expect from such a passionate poet.  Each line is exquisitely chosen to reflect people with broad differences in culture, perspective, and depth.  Horn Book Magazine lauds it, “Completely compelling; every word, every line, worth reading.”

The audio version should not be missed.  Such masterful poetry deserves to be appreciated with the talents only professional voice actors can offer.  Unabridged on 4 discs, American and British performers grace this recording to give it the appropriate credibility.  Each voice is clear, and deliberate, but never forced or canned.  The volume level is consistent throughout.  Though the subject matter is heavy and sobering most of the time, the superb cadence of the poetry is engaging and not burdensome.

This novel in verse and its audio version are destined to be studied and appreciated by teens and adults for many years to come.  It has already ignited my interest in reading more about Sylvia Plath and her individual contributions in the literary hall of fame.  As Hemphill writes in “The Arrival of Poetry,” imagining Sylvia she writes, “She radiates language.  She will not be shut up, will not be eclipsed.”