Sylvia Plath poem housed in Lilly Library published online

Forty-three years after her suicide catapulted her into iconic status, confessional poet Sylvia Plath lives on through her words. \nLast week, Anna Journey, a graduate student in creative writing at Virginia Commonwealth University, published Plath's little-known poem "Ennui," which she found in the Lilly Library's Sylvia Plath archive of juvenilia.\nPublishing the poem, which ran in the online literary journal Blackbird, provides a better understanding of Plath's work, Journey said. When compared with Plath's other writings, "Ennui" is a piece in the evolutionary puzzle that shows the development of a poet into maturity.\nJourney said she found out about the poem's existence when she read an article about Plath's personal copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." Plath had written the French word meaning "boredom" -- "L'Ennui" -- in the margin next to a quote by Fitzgerald's character Daisy Buchanan.\n"I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything," Buchanan said in "The Great Gatsby." \nThe highly ironic poem "Ennui" mocks those like Buchanan who lack imagination, Journey said. One of Plath's biggest fears was the death of her creativity and imagination.\n"It is pointing out that the world in which we live is never as exciting as fairy tales," Journey said.\nPlath's iconic status comes from her expression of personal rage against feminization, said Susan Gubar, a distinguished professor in IU's Department of English. Known for her angry poems, Plath wrote about everyday experiences and the details of her life.\n"Ennui" was written in 1955 when Plath was a student at Smith College. She met Ted Hughes -- who would become the poet laureate of England from 1984 to 1998 -- while studying at the University of Cambridge on a scholarship. They married but divorced in 1962; Plath committed suicide the following year.\nBecky Cape, Lilly Library's head of public services, said she feels IU has not missed out on recognition by not publishing the poem.\n"It's not our role as a library to publish (poems). We arrange them ... and make them accessible for research," Cape said.\nIU's Plath archive is the most frequently visited collection at the Lilly Library, said Kathleen Connors, a specialist on Plath's visual art and juvenilia and the primary organizer of the Sylvia Plath 70th Year Symposium held at IU in 2002. \n"What's unique about it is Plath's mother sold everything about Plath (to the library)," she said. "Lilly literally has the motherload of memorabilia."\nCollin Kahn, a senior majoring in English and African American and diaspora studies and a fan of Plath's writing, said visiting the archive gave him a sense of connectivity with Plath.\n"It's great that I can peruse the pages of someone I really admire," he said. "You can really get a sense of the moment (her manuscripts) were written."\nFor Kahn and others in the poetry community, publishing "Ennui" will give insight into Plath's life and personality.\n"By recognizing Plath's early efforts, we can fully understand the efforts of her poetic genius," Journey said.