Sylvia

Sometimes, I dream of a dream...

And in the dream, my life...

One branch is the man I shall marry...

And the leaves, my children...

Another branch is my future as a writer...

And each leaf...

Is a poem...

Another branch is a Goodring academic career...

And as I sit there, trying to choos3...

The leaves begin to turn brown...

And blow away...

Until the tree is absolutely bare.

The new edition of the 'Saint Botolph's Review.'

The new edition of the 'Saint Botolph's Review.'

The new edition of the 'Saint Botolph's Review.'

Come on, you look like a man who reads poetry.

-Tom! -No?

Tom!

-Excuse me. -Tom.

Tom,

where are the magazines?

They got held up at the printer's.

I saw you selling them.

Oh, that's right.

They didn't review me, did they?

No, they reviewed you all right.

It's 'Poetry, ' page 11.

'...Essentially commercial...'

bourgeois poetic...

'nakedly ambitious.'

It's not very flattering.

Who the hell do they think they are?

Well, you can ask them yourself, if you want.

There is a launch party at the Women's Union tonight.

8:00.

-Genuinely subversive. -Where is he?

-Who? -The one who wrote it.

What? That stuff about you?

No, the one who wrote 'Fallgrief's Girlfriend.'

This Edward Hughes.

Ted?

He's over there.

-I read your poems. -What?

As soon as I saw them, I knew they were the real thing.

Great, big, crashing poems,

not blubbering baby stuff like the others.

Shall we dance?

They're colossal,

magnificent,

great blowing winds on steel girders.

You like?

I like.

'O, most dear unscratchable diamond.'

Who the hell are you?

Sylvia Plath.

Sylvia Plath?

-The one whose poem... -...you tore to shreds.

-No. -Yes -No.

It was the editor.

He must have known you were very beautiful.

You're all there, aren't you?

Yes,

I am.

I have an obligation in the other room.

Oh, Jesus Christ!

This I'll keep.

...Black marauder...

One day, I'll have my death of him.

'One day, I'll have my death of him'?

It's a bit morbid, isn't it?

He's my black marauder.

Well, don't get your hopes up.

Why? What have you heard?

Him and his crowd, all they care about is poetry.

Anything else is a distraction.

Including steady girlfriends.

Even pretty American ones,

with Fulbright scholarships and red bicycles.

Ted Hughes. Ted Hughes.

Edward Hughes. Edward Hughes.

Sylvia Plath. Ted Hughes.

Mrs. Sylvia...

Hughes.

Get over.

Quiet!

Oh, shit!

Whe... which one?

That one.

How the bloody hell do you know?

Where the light's on.

What are you doing?

Stand back.

Oh, bugger.

Give this a shot.

Here.

Ooh, what you trying to do? Bloody hell!

Oh, shit! Shit!

Who is it?

Who's there?

I'm looking...

for Miss Sylvia Plath.

Well, she's not here, so just bugger off.

Excuse me.

Please,

could you tell her that Edward Hughes...

Ted Hughes, called for her.

You're late.

He was here.

Who?

Your black marauder.

Him and his little playmate...

legless.

Chucking clods at my window.

Thought it was yours apparently.

What did he say?

Nothing comprehensible.

Sylvia.

He left an address.

'The chief defect of Henry King was chewing little bits of string.'

At last he swallowed so much it tied itself in ugly knots inside.

'Physicians of the utmost fame were called...'

No, no, no, it's magic.

It's not about magic. It's not like magic. It is magic.

'When Henry with this lady friend cried, 'All my friends...

It's real magic.'

It's not conjuring tricks or pulling rabbits out of bloody hats.

Incantations.

Spells, ceremonies, rituals... what are they?

They're poems.

So what's a poet? He's a shaman, that's what he is.

Or a shame.

'...Where I used to spend my time ...'

A fucking good poem is a weapon.

It's not like a pop gun or something.

It's a bomb. It's like a bloody big bomb.

That's why they make children learn them in school.

They don't want them messing about with them on their own.

I mean, just imagine if a sonnet went off accidentally.

Boom.

-Drink! -Drink!

Sylvia!

Come on, Sylvia.

Go on,

get up, go on.

'If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts'

Against their father,

Let not women's weapons, water drops, stain my cheeks!

No, you unnatural hags,

-'I will have such revenges on you...' -Faster.

'That all the world shall... I will do such things, '

What they are, yet I know not,

'But they shall be...' -Faster.

'You think I'll weep. No, I'll not weep.'

I'll have full cause of weeping,

But this heart shall break

into a hundred thousand flaws or ere I'll weep,

'O fool, I shall go mad.'

Come on, Ted.

'I know you all and will a while uphold the... humour of your idleness.'

Yet herein will I imitate the sun who permit the... clouds

To smother up his beauty... when he please again to be himself,

...he may be more wondered at by breaking through

-'The foul and ugly mists or vapours...' -Faster.

'If all the years were play and holiday, '

To sport would be as tedious as to work...

...And nothing pleaseth but rare accident.

So when this loose behaviour I throw off,

And pay the debt I never promiseth,

by how much better than my word I am

By so much shall I falsify men's hopes,

and like bright metal on sullen ground

'My reformation...' -Faster.

'...Shall show them all goodly and attract more eyes'

Than that which hath no foil to set it off!

I'll so offend to make offence a skill

'Redeeming time when men think least I will!'

Morecambe, again. Okay.

'O, dear Juliet,

why art thou yet so fair?'

Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous,

And that the lean abhorred monster

'Keeps thee here in the dark to be his paramour?'

'For fear of that, I still will stay with thee, '

And never from this palace of dim night depart again.

Here...

here will I remain

'With worms that are thy chambermaids.'

Oh, you.

'The doors of breath seal with a righteous kiss'

A dateless bargain to engrossing death...

'Here's to my love.'

'Thus with a kiss.

I die.'

How did you get the scar?

I tried to kill myself three years ago.

I broke into the box where my mother kept the sleeping pills.

Went down to the basement into the crawl space underneath the house.

And I took them and I went to sleep.

Did you ever have something that you wanted to erase?

No.