{"id":3655,"date":"2013-09-03T17:59:48","date_gmt":"2013-09-03T17:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/?page_id=3655"},"modified":"2023-03-31T12:32:36","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T16:32:36","slug":"the-plath-cabinet","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/the-plath-cabinet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Plath Cabinet"},"content":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″]\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

paper \u2022 76 pages \u2022 15.95
\nISBN-13: 978-1-884800-86-3<\/p>\n

Add to Cart<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/column]<\/p>\n

The Plath Cabinet<\/em><\/h1>\n

Catherine Bowman<\/h2>\n

The literary fate of Sylvia Plath brings into high relief the process by which a writer\u2014a person\u2014becomes
\nan icon, frozen in time, reduced to a definitive set of contours. The Plath Cabinet<\/em>, inspired and driven both
\nby Plath\u2019s published work and by the hundreds and hundreds of pieces in the Lilly Library at Indiana
\nUniversity\u2019s Plath archive, houses a suite of poems that exhumes, examines, and ultimately troubles our
\npreconceived notions of \u201cSylvia Plath.\u201d Fueled by the ephemeral\u2014a lock of hair, paper dolls, childhood
\nTo-Do lists\u2014as well as the monumental, The Plath Cabinet<\/em> is by turns analytic, whimsical and ecstatic as it
\ntakes out and re-arranges the pieces of our collective understanding of Plath and re-introduces us to her as
\na living, breathing force.<\/p>\n

Bowman here plays off Plath\u2019s place in the cabinet and the canon. This collection is an homage to,
\nexploration of, and conversation with the work and myth of Sylvia Plath\u2014an obsessive Virgilian expedition
\ninto the ways Plath and her legacy inhabit us. Creating a book that acts as a pseudo-archive, Bowman
\nexamines objects kept protected under lock and key: Plath\u2019s wedding invitations, her passport, her
\ninstructions to her nanny. The Plath Cabinet<\/em> presents several ekphrastic poems responding to the enchanting,
\nvoluptuous paper dolls Plath painstakingly designed when she was a young girl. Elsewhere, Bowman creates
\nan original bestiary out of animals in Plath\u2019s poems, including, hauntingly, the \u201czoo-keeper\u2019s wife.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Plath Cabinet<\/em> is not simply an unparalleled biography: it is a memoir in poems, telling the story of
\nBowman\u2019s relationship to Plath and to poetry. The Plath Cabinet<\/em> turns to forms and wordplay that work
\nagainst Plath\u2019s dense, highly crafted style in order to create tension and to explore Plath\u2019s work in the
\ncontext of larger cultural and social constructions\u2014the poetic, the everyday, the domestic, the feminine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has always been about the ferryman,\u201d Bowman writes, and one leaves this book newly aware of the
\nurgency that lies behind Bowman\u2019s poems. The Plath Cabinet<\/em> is a must-read for Plath-lovers, for anyone
\ninterested in memoir and biography, and for all readers of contemporary poetry. Bowman raises new
\npossibilities for our relationship with the acclaimed writers whose words we inherit and revere.<\/p>\n

About the Author<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″] paper \u2022 76 pages \u2022 15.95 ISBN-13: 978-1-884800-86-3 Add to Cart [\/column] The Plath Cabinet Catherine Bowman The literary fate of Sylvia Plath brings into high relief the process by which a writer\u2014a person\u2014becomes an icon, frozen in time, reduced to a definitive set of contours. The Plath Cabinet, inspired and driven both by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3655","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3655"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19207,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3655\/revisions\/19207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}