"Allegory Without Gwyneth Paltrow as Plath and Daniel Craig as Hughes"

Abstract

DAVID SEMANKI

Submission, Plath Profiles

Poem, “Allegory Without Gwyneth Paltrow as Plath and Daniel Craig as Hughes”

As a trade editor at HarperCollins Publishers, I proposed to the Sylvia Plath estate that Plath’s original version of Ariel should be published.  With the estate’s approval, a dream project began.  Being responsible for the day-to-day editorial process for the book, I engaged with Plath’s original text on the macro-level (such as of manuscript order) to the micro-level (such as punctuation and differences of American versus British spelling).  From this editorial experience, I produced the notes selection for the volume.  But as the intense experience gave way to the book’s publication, I found myself still involved inwardly with the worlds that Plath’s poetry opened up to me.  Thus, I have written the poem “Allegory Without Gwyneth Paltrow as Plath and Daniel Craig as Hughes” as a response to that inwardness.  The poem uses the 1965 film Le Bonheur and the 2003 film Sylvia as scaffolding.