Book Review: Sylvia Plath: Drawings is just lovely. Charming. A little bit of heaven to hold and treasure. She has a brilliant touch that fills her lines with charm. Plath reveals so much of herself: she so wants to do well, to achieve, succeed, to capture. Many of the drawings are quite involved. She loves what she views. She delights in her own talent and fits it all into composition. Each drawing has its own theme. Plath's poems were so often in turmoil, in pain, dissolved in emotion. These drawings are softer, more humble, even sweet. What both poems and drawings contain is the brilliant eye, the poet's way of seeing and the artist's way of presenting.
Most of the work in Drawings come from 1956. The book is broken into four sections of drawings, from England, France, Spain, USA. Each section is prefaced by letters, journal entries, accompanied by a poem, or in one case a copy of a drawing and article Plath had in The Christian Science Monitor. There's an introduction by her daughter: poor, conflicted Frieda (how could she not be?).
Plath wrote that she wanted to establish a style, "a kind of child-like simplifying of each object into design." She wrote her mother that "I'm developing a kind of primitive style of my own, which I am very fond of." She got "a sense of peace" from drawing, a sense less often revealed in her poems. Especially the poems she's best known for, those from 1961-63. I'm no art expert nor a poetry expert. For me, this book is a mix of the sense of Plath as a person that I get from these drawings and the person I know from reading her poems. It's not just a collection of drawings, but a chance for a deeper insight into Plath, a different way to see her. Plath's poems and drawings, all jumbled up. A better picture of Sylvia. [5★]
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