Sylvia Plath’s Resting Place

For Sylvia – 27^th October 1932 to 11^th February 1963

I’ve visited Sylvia Plath’s resting place on a number of occasions and often noticed pens and pencils placed on her headstone. Like offerings to the immortal spirit so that another life can continue beyond this one. 

I remember lying down on my side to get a photos of the headstone from a quirky angle and a voice behind me in a strong Yorkshire accent said, “If you lie there any longer they’ll shovel some soil on you!” We laughed and nodded then moved on. 

The poem below simply reflects my thoughts and feelings on my regular visits to Heptonstall.

Pen's Atop

Visitors cannot see your face, just an edifice

To feel your presence beneath our feet, the soil, the turf, a hilltop cemetery to rest in ‘peace’

To reach the wuthering height I have wandered the cobbled, banked streets

Passing time-capsuled houses and yesteryear shops

The monolith is a magnet for the searching ones, the reverential ones to pay obeisance

All pulled in and drawn in like a black hole swallowing light

We willingly trudge and traipse to the site and become our senses

To offer condolences and search for insight

And grow beyond what we are now, to turn into something new.

Heads swirl, dizziness not uncommon, silent photographs taken to relive the scene, revive the moment

Pens and pencils adorn the headstone top, as if in the hope you will rise and use them to set down new verse

And add to your canon, expand your oeuvre at night when no one is watching, silently writing

As the crows maintain a respectful distance, the hawks fly high, gliding, observing.

Sylvia Plath and the strange case of the grubby dishcloths.

Nicholas Hughes and the poem 'Child' by Sylvia Plath

Before she died, Sylvia wrote a poem dedicated to her son Nicholas called ‘Nick and the Candlestick’, which includes the line: “The pain you wake to is not yours.” Both absolving the baby from any feeling of future guilt about her marital breakdown, but also maybe ominously pointing to a darker intent about her own life.

Another poem written at this time in Fitzroy Road, ‘Child’ also covers the love and possibilities for her children, and in particular Nicholas who had just celebrated his first birthday on 17^th January. At the time, Sylvia, Nicholas and Frieda were living in a flat on the top floor of 23 Fitzroy Road in Primrose Hill, London. The poem would later feature in the Winter Trees collection, published in 1971, although the photos here are from my copy of the Rougemont Press limited edition pamphlet.

The poem was written on Monday 28^th January 1963, just 11 days after Nicholas’s birthday and 12 days before she herself died, on Monday 11^th February.

Looking at the facsimile of her handwritten notes, Sylvia had rattled off the first three stanzas reasonably quickly and with clear thought. However, the fourth stanza seems to have caused the most consternation, as her mind worked hard to conclude the poem with three lines that reflected her current state of mind, marriage and life, and again absolving the child of any blame or responsibility. In the end she got it just right but the journey to the fourth stanza includes many crossed out lines, indeed half of her notes are workings of the last stanza! Lines noted but omitted include:  

“Not this troublous wringing of dishcloths….not this grubby dishcloth…this sudden absence of planets….paralytic hands + dishcloths…this black paper without moon or planets…ceiling with no planets or constellations…”

The references to ‘dishcloths’ and ‘grubby dishcloths’ suggests the poem was written at the kitchen table as these references appear to be real time observations flashing through the poets quicksilver mind. Through this editing and what looks like quite a bit of effort and thought, the final version of the last stanza was finally arrived at:

Not this troublous   

Wringing of hands, this dark

Ceiling without a star.

Sadly, Nicholas Farrar Hughes committed suicide on March 16, 2009 aged just 47 in Alaska and had a successful career as a marine biologist.

The Factory Records Three in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery

 Finding the Factory Records Three in Manchester’s Southern Cemetery

“I've been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand…”

It was a beautiful autumn day and I decided to call in at the Southern Cemetery and look for the resting place of three significant figures in the Manchester music scene. Three people who transformed how we looked at bands from the regions and who put in place the building blocks for many other bands and artists looking to produce music which could reach a wider audience without being based in the capital.  

Much has been written about Factory Records, the Hacienda nightclub and life in the music business of that time by band members, fans and journalists. Somehow though after all the hype it’s comforting to know that three key people are laid to rest near each other in the same cemetery. Indeed Tony wanted to be buried here because Martin and Rob were already there. These ‘band of brothers’ are clearly still close even as they rest in peace.

 “To the centre of the city where all roads meet, waiting for you…”

To help with your visit, details of Sothern Cemetery are below:

Southern Cemetery, Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 7GL

You can download a plan of the grounds for the Southern Cemetery from the link on this page:

 https://www.manchester.gov.uk/downloads/download/4990/plan_of_cemetery_and_crematorium_grounds

This map is quite useful and I’ll refer to it to direct you the headstones. Also, if you go to Google Maps on a laptop and go to Street View by dragging the little yellow figure on to the cemetery you can walk round ‘virtually’. But if you visit in reality, when you arrive at the cemetery you can park in the bays left or right as you turn into the entrance.

“Avenues all lined with trees, Picture me and then you start watching…”

Anthony Howard Wilson - 20 February 1950 – 10 August 2007.

To find Tony’s resting place walk straight ahead to the large circular path, it looks a bit like a roundabout. Take a left down Holly Avenue; this is not on the map but the sign is there. (Plot B on the map to the left of the roundabout). Walk just a few yards and Tony’s headstone is on your left. It looks like the obelisk from 2001 a Space Odyssey. It is highly polished and so provides good opportunities to get some creative reflections in photographs. It’s a beautiful piece of design, as you’d expect, and I particularly like the reference to Tony being a ‘Cultural Catalyst’. 

 

 “I travelled far and wide through many different times…”

Robert Leo Gretton - 15 January 1953 – 15 May 1999.

From Tony’s headstone head back towards the ‘roundabout’ go straight across and across another smaller ‘roundabout’ to the East Chapel. At the Chapel turn right down the path and Rob’s resting place is a little way along on your left. On the map it’s about three quarters down plot G. It’s a large cross with the word ‘Gretton’ in gold on black marble; a very impressive monument and a fitting tribute to Rob. 

“No language, just sound, that's all we need know…”

 James Martin Hannett - 31 May 1948 - 18 April 1991.

From Rob’s headstone, head back to the East Chapel and walk round to the opposite side of it and straight ahead towards Nell Lane. Cross Nell Lane and enter the cemetery, walk about a hundred yards and take the first right. Martin’s gravestone is a little way along on your left set back from the path. (Plot FF above BB on the map). It’s a black monolithic design with bold white typography. I really think the epitaph ‘…Creator Of The Manchester Sound’ is highly appropriate as no one did more to ensure the bands and artists he worked with had a unique quality to their production that set them apart from their contemporaries. 

 

“Turning around to the next set of lives, Wondering what will come next…”

Ted Hughes - Where it all Started

The Birthplace of Ted Hughes

Following in the footsteps of famous people is often questioned as a not so worth it journey. At least some people tell me. But I find walking the terrain of creative artists provides a real sense of place and purpose and helps to better understand the source of their passions. None truer than in the case of Ted.

Navigating the slim streets, never designed for a 4x4 and a white van man to pass sidely, and always on the look-out and pausing for reversing cars to squeeze into the tiniest of gaps in front of their houses, I wound my way down the sinewy lanes to Aspinall Street.

The blue plaque guided me like a lighthouse beacon to the door. Somehow not what I expected but somehow perfect. Larger than I thought, probably one of the biggest in the area. I imagine the sense of community in this neighbourhood in the past and felt sure it was still there now. It’s not just the immediate area but the surrounding nearby hills, ideal for hikes and camping trips with wildlife abundant, that gave influence to a writing desire that continued for a lifetime.

Yes, this is the house I have read so much about yet it’s so much more than that. This was your home, where your journey began.

End Terrace

So here it is, the start, the first cry with your first breath
Humble gritstone and tile on a quiet street not pretending to be anything else
Birthdays, Christmases, a pencil to mark your height against a wall
With the same pencil put the prose on blank sheet, it excites and ignites a passion life-long
End terrace, closeted streets,
Camping trips and nature sleeps seep into your poetry distilled from the moors and valleys of Calder
Its influence shone brightly throughout your writing career
But the spark started here
End terrace of gritstone and tile
The birds, the animals, the predators of the night
The rivers, the waters, the fluidity of the light
The thrill, the butterflies in the tummy at a new word learnt a new phrase coined
Perspectives mastered, language your attendant all perfectly aligned, satisfactorily adjoined
Charging out the front door into the morning light to play and school
An unimagined future that many will dissect follows
But this is the dawn, the genesis of it all.

Sylvia Plath - The Lady in the Vase

The Poet as Artist

Really? Wow! For a long time I hadn’t realised Sylvia was an accomplished artist. A chance internet search a good few years ago started to drop hints.

I already had books by singers and rock stars showing their artistic talent, but a poet was a pleasant surprise. 

The drawings add another dimension to understanding how Sylvia saw the world, what she imagined with her own eyes, giving further insights and understanding to her work.  They also show what an important element art was in her life, once saying in a letter to her mother Aurelia, that it was her deepest source of inspiration.

However, I believe only two poems were directly referenced through paintings - by Henri Rousseau and Paul Klee, indicating she was not a prolific ekphrastic poet but more taking inspiration and emotional feelings to help inspire her work.  

Sylvia’s artworks augment the library and the imagination, stir visions of people and places and add context to her travels and locations. 

Her art varies from quick, flick-of-the-wrist sketches to time-sapping drawings in exquisite detail, in a variety of locations and subjects from the Calder Valley, Paris, America and Spain among others.

Looking again through Crystal Gazer and the Mayor Gallery exhibition books, I gazed upon a drawing of a lady as part of an elaborate vase, a sweetcorn plant at her back, attached, entwined. It’s one of my favourites and is pictured above. I wrote a short poem about it below.

Sylvia clearly had an eye for the unusual, the everyday and the ornamental. Like her writing, her ‘art’ will continue to inspire.

The Lady in the Vase

A statuette jailed with pen and ink

Imprisoned in a fine impression

A lady trapped in porcelain

And wrapped in alabaster corn

Protected from the outside world

Woven paper her guardian

The page a life sentence

And the viewer, the jury

Spring the figurine free from her fate with every gaze.

 

 

Ted Hughes and Lumb Bank Reflections

On Ted, Assia and Shura

I learned recently of the final resting place of Ted Hughes' lover Assia Wevill and their daughter Alexandra Tatiana Elise (known as Shura). After my wanderings, I wrote a poem to crystallise and preserve my thoughts, which is at the end of this blog. 

I visited the area around Heptonstall and Ted's house he bought in the late 60s, Lumb Bank, now a writer's retreat, pictured below from the public footpath leading down into the Calder Valley. 

After the filicide/suicide of Assia and Shura at their London home in Okeover Manor, Clapham Common, Ted cremated their remains rather than carrying out Assia's earlier request for burial. It has only recently come to light where the ashes have been laid to rest. I travelled to the area, where the sycamores grow and absorbed the atmosphere and feeling of the valley. 

This seemed to be the right kind of place to close a chapter and bury the past away from prying eyes. Although there is no memorial spot, I believe Ted acted in good faith considering the pressures he had been under to spill the beans on his relationships. But a secret, or private, resting place, known but to himself, could be seen as an act of dignity and respect rather than a way of hiding any perceived controversy or hullabaloo. After all, Sylvia's headstone has been vandalised a number of times, fuelling more division than harmony. 

From this we can see a secluded place of rest was the best option to calm the public and private commotion. After this Ted went on to marry and continued to write. Maybe the burying of the ashes was not only a symbolic gesture, but the only avenue open to him in order to move on and develop his life and his talent. 

On Assia and Shura Wevill

In the copse no corpses here where both you rest

Skin so scorched it has become the land

Bones as powdered as lava sand

Descended to the underworld by a burdened hand

Hurriedly but thoughtfully as secretly as dreamers fly

Hidden proudly away from those that may pry

You now play where sycamores sky-scrape

Dance with their keys on the summer breeze

Huddled together, daughter and mother, in the winter freeze

Lumb’s shadow reaches out to touch the remnant memories of the valley

Where lives given were extracted too soon from their birth

Into the ground, into the seasoned earth.