Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.

In a recent post, Edward Byrne noted the following:

Because Sylvia Plath died so young, by suicide at the age of thirty, one sometimes can forget that she might have lived to still be writing today . . . In addition, when encountering Plath’s expansive, easily readable, often interesting and even gripping journal entries, one does not have to take too large a leap to imagine her as someone who might have been comfortable and popular as a blogger had the Internet existed as an outlet for her regular ruminations

I agree that the style of her journals would lend itself to blogging; I can go further and imagine that if the Internet had existed at the time she might have found herself with more of a community, a group at least of voices to support her, maybe enough to live. When I used Livejournal (which I left shortly after the strikethrough and user rebellion), I knew a number of people who used their LJ networks in a similar way; I certainly did at times.

Had Plath survived that winter and her misery, there would be the possibility not only of her writing a blog and writing more of her compressed lightning poems but also of her mentoring younger poets or simply serving as an example. (I wonder, however, if actually hearing her read in have would have the same thrill I imagine it would, since impossiblity may add to the frisson.) What would it have mean to me to grow up, to develop as a poet, while new books came out from her? How much further would that have pushed me, pushed so many of us?

And what would it have meant to have had her as an example of the female artist overcoming her pain instead of, finally, despite the stunning poetic evidence of her struggle, being overcome by it? I could have composed Magdalene & the Mermaids (forthcoming from Paper Kite Press) standing firmly on those shoulders instead of merely borrowing techniques that I had to view with suspicion.

Or maybe I would have regarded her influence as threatening, though I can’t recall ever feeling that way about an elder poet.

Had Plath lived, poetry would be different: not only hers and not only mine. The literary blogosphere, too, might not be the same. How do you think your work would differ?

Related posts:

1. Thursday Read Write Poem

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.