Sylvia

Dying is an art

Like everything else,

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.

I do it so it feels real.

I guess you could say

I have a call.

The new edition of the

"Saint Botolph's Review."

The new edition of the

"Saint Botolph's Review."

The new edition of the

"Saint Botolph's Review."

Come on, you look

like a man who reads poetry.

- Tom!

- No?

Tom!

- Excuse me.

- Tom.

Tom, where are the magazines?

They got held up

at the printer's.

I saw you selling them.

Oh, that's right.

They didn't review me, did they?

No, they reviewed you all right.

It's "Poetry," page 11.

"Essentially commercial"

bourgeois poetic

"nakedly ambitious."

It's not very flattering.

Who the hell

do they think they are?

Well, you can ask them

yourself, if you want.

There is a launch party at

the Women's Union tonight.

8:
00.

- Genuinely subversive.

- Where is he?

- Who?

- The one who wrote it.

What? That stuff

about you?

No, the one who wrote

"Fallgrief's Girlfriend."

This Edward Hughes.

Ted?

He's over there.

- I read your poems.

- What?

As soon as I saw them, I knew

they were the real thing.

Great, big, crashing poems,

not blubbering baby stuff

like the others.

Shall we dance?

They're colossal,

magnificent,

great blowing winds

on steel girders.

- You like?

- I like.

"O, most dear

unscratchable diamond."

Who the hell are you?

Sylvia Plath.

Sylvia Plath?

- The one whose poem

- you tore to shreds.

- No, no.

- Yes.

It was the editor.

He must have known

you were very beautiful.

You're all there, aren't you?

Yes, I am.

I have an obligation

in the other room.

Oh, Jesus Christ!

This I'll keep.

Black marauder

One day, I'll have

my death of him.

"One day, I'll have

my death of him"?

It's a bit morbid, isn't it?

He's my black marauder.

Well, don't get your hopes up.

Why?

What have you heard?

Him and his crowd, all

they care about is poetry.

Anything else is a distraction.

Including steady girlfriends.

Even pretty American ones with Fulbright

scholarships and red bicycles.

Ted Hughes. Ted Hughes.

Edward Hughes.

Edward Hughes.

Sylvia Plath.

Ted Hughes.

Mrs. Sylvia

Hughes.

Get over.

Quiet!

Oh, sh*t!

- Whe which one?

- That one.

How the bloody hell do you know?

Where the light's on.

- What are you doing?

- Stand back.

Oh, bugger.

- Give this a shot.

- Here.

Ooh, what you trying to do?

Bloody hell!

Oh, sh*t! Sh*t!

Shh.

Who is it? Who's there?

I'm looking

for Miss Sylvia Plath.

Well, she's not here,

so just bugger off.

Excuse me.

Please, could you tell

her that Edward Hughes

Ted Hughes, called for her.

You're late.

- He was here.

- Who?

Your black marauder.

Him and his little

playmate legless.

Chucking clods at my window.

Thought it was yours apparently.

What did he say?

Nothing comprehensible.

Sylvia.

He left an address.

"The chief defect of Henry King was

chewing little bits of string."

At last he swallowed so much it

tied itself in ugly knots inside.

"Physicians of the utmost fame

were called"

No, no, no, it's magic.

It's not about magic. It's not like magic.

It is magic.

"When Henry cried, 'All my

friends It's real magic."

It's not conjuring tricks or pulling

rabbits out of bloody hats.

Incantations.

Spells, ceremonies,

rituals what are they?

They're poems.

So what's a poet? He's a

shaman, that's what he is.

Or a shame.

"Where I used to spend

my time "

A f***ing good poem is a weapon.

It's not like

a pop gun or something.

It's a bomb. It's like

a bloody big bomb.

That's why they make children

learn them in school.

They don't want them messing

about with them on their own.

I mean, just imagine if a

sonnet went off accidentally.

Boom.

- Drink!

- Drink!

Sylvia!

Come on, Sylvia.

Go on, get up, go on.

"If it be you that stir

these daughters' hearts"

Against their father,

Let not women's weapons, water

drops, stain my cheeks!

No, you unnatural hags,

- "I will have such revenges on you"

- Faster.

"That all the world shall

I will do such things,"

What they are, yet I know not,

- "But they shall be"

- Faster.

"You think I'll weep.

No"

I'll have full cause of weeping,

But this heart shall break

into flaws or ere I'll weep,

"O fool,

I shall go mad."

Come on, Ted.

"I know you all and will a while

uphold the humor of your idleness."

Yet herein will I imitate

the sun who permit the clouds

To smother up his beauty when

he please again to be himself,

he may be more

wondered at by breaking through

- "The foul and ugly mists or vapors"

- Faster.

"If all the years

were play and holiday,"

To sport would be

as tedious as to work

And nothing pleaseth

but rare accident.

So when this loose behavior

I throw off,

And pay the debt I never promiseth,

by how much better than my word I am

By so much shall I falsify men's hopes,

and like bright metal on sullen ground

- "My reformation"

- Faster.

"Shall show them all goodly

and attract more eyes"

Than that which hath no foil

to set it off!

I'll so offend

to make offense a skill

"Redeeming time when

men think least I will!"

Morecambe, again. Okay.

"O, dear Juliet,

why art thou yet so fair?"

Shall I believe that

unsubstantial death is amorous,

And that the lean

abhorred monster

"Keeps thee here in the dark

to be his paramour?"

"For fear of that, I still

will stay with thee,"

And never from this palace

of dim night depart again.

Here here will I remain

"With worms that are

thy chambermaids."

Oh, you.

"The doors of breath

seal with a righteous kiss"

A dateless bargain

to engrossing death

"Here's to my love."

"Thus with a kiss.

I die."

How did you get the scar?

I tried to kill myself

three years ago.

I broke into the box where my

mother kept the sleeping pills.

Went down to the basement into the

crawl space underneath the house.

And I took them

and I went to sleep.

Did you ever have something

that you wanted to erase?

No.

And?

And I took too many

of the damn things

and I puked them up.

And three days later,

my mother and brother

found me and pulled me out.

What about the scar?

I ripped my cheek

on the concrete

when they pulled me out.

- A memento mori.

- Hmm.

Yes.

Because I was dead

only I rose up again.

Like Lazarus.

Lady Lazarus.

That's me.

You wouldn't do that

if you knew.

What?

What was down there.

Jesus Christ! What the?!

Look.

Very intelligent, cows.

Did you know that?

Really?

Not a lot of people

give them credit.

What do you think they'd

prefer, Milton or Chaucer?

Chaucer, obviously.

Ladies, I give you

"The Wife of Bath."

"Experience,

though noon auctoritee"

Were in this world,

is right ynogh for me To speke

of wo that is in marriage.

For, lordynges, sith I twelve

yeer was of age,

"Thonked be God

that were eterne on lyve"

Beautiful.

"Housbondes at chirche dore,

I have had fyve"

"23rd of August, 1956."

We thank you for the manuscripts

you submitted recently,

but cannot use this at present.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes