In Remembrance: Sylvia Plath

Today would have been Sylvia Plath's 87th birthday. Although there is much controversy surrounding her death in 1963 and her marriage with Ted Hughes, I don't want to focus on any of those things. Today I want to shed light on her writings.

Am I fan of Sylvia Plath? I don't know - I can't say. And perhaps this post will be oddly amusing to some of you because of that. Why would I write a post about a poet and author that I don't know how I feel about? Well, because in some ways I can't help but feel intensely connected to her.

When I read The Bell Jar, I hated it. Perhaps one day I will revisit it and discover that it holds a strong truth for me. Perhaps I read it at the wrong time, or reading about depression was too true and I just found it bleak and colourless. I don't know. But when I read about her, I feel connected to her soul. Some of her poems resonate with me strongly.

Here are a few pieces of her writings that mean a lot to me personally:

RFID Poetry

For many of those working in today's libraries, RFID is a term you are more than familiar with - radio-frequency identification. Tags are placed inside books, movies, and other library materials which act as both a security feature and a quick and easy way to sign out items. This allows these materials to be checked out without using the barcode, and for users to borrow and return items without the help of library staff.
RFID poetry is a form of book spine poetry (placing spines of books next to each other and reading the titles in order to create a poem). Created by checking out or returning items with the use of RFID scanners, the resulting receipt can create some deep, hilarious, or downright weird poetic creations depending on the order the items are scanned.