Daisy Dunn

What a voice Plath had – stern yet somehow musical, long-vowelled, bear-like: Radio 4’s My Sylvia Plath reviewed

Plus: Joan Didion’s essays are currently being read on Radio 4 and amply bear out her reputation

Sylvia Plath at Smith College, Massachusetts, c.1951. Image: Penrodas Collection / Alamy Stock Photo 
issue 18 February 2023

Can you ever truly know a poet? The question arises every time one publishes a collection that looks vaguely confessional. Is it real, we ask, or is it all persona? My Sylvia Plath, an Archive on 4 programme to mark the 60th anniversary of Plath’s death this month, presupposes that poets are to some degree unreachable.

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