Sylvia Plath [With 2-Color, 64 Page Companion Book]

This is part of a handsomely packaged new series, in which archival recordings of noted poets reading from their works are paired with accompanying text volumes. The poems are published for cross-reference, along with historical photographs and introductory biographical essays by J.D. McClatchy, editor of The Yale Review. (Other poets included in the launch are W.H. Auden and James Merrill.) The Boston-born Plath (1932-1963) reads her works in an incisive and forthright manner, carefully enunciating her words to give a strong sense of structured internal rhythms. Largely written while married to the British poet Ted Hughes in the years just before her suicide, these works dwell--presciently--on themes of marriage and death. In ""November Graveyard,"" she speaks of ""...the bare room, the blank, untenanted air."" Read aloud, the rawness of Plath's vision comes across especially immediate and acute. Of interest to scholars and general-audience Plath fans alike. (June)