Hear Sylvia Plath Read 18 Poems From Her Final Collection, Ariel, in a 1962 Recording

“Add to the avail­able accounts of Plath (there are so many) this, please: nobody brought a house to life the way she did.” So writes Dan Chi­as­son in a Feb­ru­ary New York­er piece com­mem­o­rat­ing the fifti­eth anniver­sary of Sylvia Plath’s death. Chiasson’s plea is made all the more poignant by his care­ful read­ings of the tenderness—amidst the pain and horror—in Plath’s final col­lec­tion, Ariel, which she left sit­ting on the kitchen table to be found along with her body. (The col­lec­tion has recent­ly been restored to cor­re­spond to Plath’s final wish­es).

Chiasson’s refo­cus­ing of Plath’s lega­cy feels nec­es­sary, giv­en that, as James Park­er writes in The Atlantic, “Her short life has been tram­pled and retram­pled under the biographer’s hoof, her opus viewed and skewed through every con­ceiv­able lens of inter­pre­ta­tion.” It is some­times dif­fi­cult to con­nect with work—even with that as stun­ning­ly accom­plished and res­o­nant as Plath’s—through this thick haze of sen­sa­tion­al­ism and cult fan­dom. Even if many of the poems in Ariel—most famous­ly “Lady Lazarus”—seem to request this kind of scruti­ny, many oth­ers, Chi­as­son writes, includ­ing the title poem, need to be approached afresh, with­out the mor­bid celebri­ty bag­gage Plath’s name car­ries.

Is this pos­si­ble? Per­haps one way to recon­nect with the poet­ry is to hear Plath her­self read­ing it. In these record­ings, you can hear her read fif­teen poems from Ariel, her New Eng­land Brah­min vow­els inflect­ing every line, draw­ing out inter­nal rhymes and asso­nance, then clip­ping at caesuras like a well-bred horse’s trot­ting hooves.

The title poem “Ariel”—which Chi­as­son eulo­gizes as “a per­fect poem, per­fect in its excess­es and stray blasphemies”—is, in fact, part­ly named after Plath’s favorite horse. Also enfold­ed in the title is the cap­tive sprite bound to per­form tricks for Shakespeare’s mage Pros­pero in The Tem­pest, and an Old Tes­ta­ment name giv­en to Jerusalem, mean­ing “lion of God” (the sec­ond stan­za begins “God’s lioness…”). Plath’s poet­ic self-under­stand­ing is as com­plex as this allu­sive lay­er­ing sug­gests, and the poem’s jar­ring ellipses demand very close atten­tion.

The read­ings here are from record­ings made on Octo­ber 20, 1962. Poems include: “The Rab­bit Catch­er,” “A Birth­day Present,” “A Secret,” “The Appli­cant,” “Dad­dy,” “Medusa,” “Stopped Dead,” “Fever 103°,” “Amne­si­ac,” “Cut,” “Ariel,” “Pop­pies In Octo­ber,” “Nick And The Can­dle­stick,” “Pur­dah,” and “Lady Lazarus.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

On 50th Anniver­sary of Sylvia Plath’s Death, Hear Her Read ‘Lady Lazarus’

For Sylvia Plath’s 80th Birth­day, Hear Her Read ‘A Birth­day Present’

The Art of Sylvia Plath: Revis­it Her Sketch­es, Self-Por­traits, Draw­ings & Illus­trat­ed Let­ters

525 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness


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Comments (11)
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  • Alex Chua says:

    Hear­ing Plath read Dad­dy was a rev­e­la­tion!

  • BECKI SMITH says:

    LISTEN, GIVE YOURSELF A GIFT TODAY!

  • Fredrik Asplund says:

    Amaz­ing and unique voice in every way!

    Linked on Sprawler: sprawler.tumblr.com

  • Johnny Panic says:

    Such a haunt­ing voice. I always enjoy hear­ing these record­ings. That being said…Mr. Chi­as­son’s arti­cle is a slop­py, mean­der­ing piece that he obvi­ous­ly pound­ed out before a dead­line. Skip it and read the restored edi­tion of “Ariel” vs. the 1965 Hugh­es ver­sion. Judge Plath’s mag­num opus as she had intend­ed for it to be pre­sent­ed: the first word “love,” and the last “spring”.

  • Martha Torre de Fuget says:

    IF WE HAD THE AMAZING PRIVILEGE OF LISTENING TO THE AUTHORS READING THEIR WORKS, IT WOULD MAKE LITERATURE SI MUCH MORE REAL. HER READING LENDS A DIMENSION TO HER POETRY THAT NO ONE ELSE COULD.

  • Mario says:

    Does any­one know if there are any record­ings of Plath read­ing “I am Ver­ti­cal”?

  • Whiteness says:

    Are these Sylvia Plath’s read­ings on pub­lic domain?

    Shall I use this audio as back­ground voice for a non-com­mer­cial project with­out per­mis­sion?

    Appre­ci­ate a response about this.

    Thanks
    :-)

  • Irish says:

    Is this real­ly her? So beau­ti­ful.

  • Daniel R. Drown says:

    In her great order, the purg­ing of a mod­ern 20th cen­tu­ry women, a poet of unques­tion­able mea­sure leaves her vast mark on the world. I can’t help won­der­ing what more could she have cre­at­ed had she seen a full life? It is still unfor­giv­able, over half a cen­tu­ry lat­er, that her final jour­nal was destroyed by her estranged hus­band.

  • Babar says:

    I am spell­bound hear­ing Sylvia Plath read­ing ARIEL. Thank you from Bangladesh.

  • Salonee says:

    You are love­ly open­cul­ture
    My grat­i­tude is there
    For nev­er dis­ap­point­ing

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