Sylvia Plath was scared of letters.
The postman always announced his presence with a ‘burst of prophetic
whistling’. In May 1958, eating a slice of toast with butter and
strawberry jam before going to teach her class at Smith, she spotted the
mailman with ‘a handful of flannel: circulars – soap-coupons, Sears
sales, a letter from mother of stale news she’d already relayed over the
phone, a card from Oscar Williams inviting us to a cocktail party in
New York on the impossible last day of my classes. No news.’ In late
1959, waiting for short story acceptances that would not come, she wrote
in her journal: ‘Must not wait for mail as it ruins the day.’ Then the
next day: ‘No mail. Who am I? Why should a poet be a novelist? Why not?’
Then, in late 1962, after she’d torn the phoneline out of the wall
during an argument with her husband, Ted Hughes, and..
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