Philadelphia Weekly

Kate Moses, the former editor of Salon's "Mothers Who Think," delved into a dissection of Sylvia Plath's work and life that lasted three years. The result is Wintering, the novelized story of Plath's last months before her suicide. Moses' book draws its narrative from the Ariel poems--in the order the poet intended. Just weeks after the 40th anniversary of Plath's death, Kate Moses will be in Philadelphia to read from and discuss her novel.

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After three years, you must be maxed out on Sylvia Plath.
"I finished the manuscript on my daughter's last day of kindergarten. She announced to her class that mommy was done with her book, which meant that Sylvia Plath was finally dead. Her imagination was so incredible, and it was really exciting to be steeped in that. On the other hand, it was very intense."

Why did you tackle this difficult subject?
"I was working on a biography of a woman who lived at the turn of the century, and took a leave of absence from work to finish it. Once I got home I was absolutely stuck and couldn't write anything. I remembered a quote from Plath's journals about writer's block: 'I write as if an eye were upon me.' It really spoke to me, and that was as good excuse as any to go back to her instead of sitting at my desk and suffering."

Had you done a study of Plath's work?
"I guess you could call me a serious reader of Sylvia Plath, but I had no intention of writing about her. I'd probably read her Collected Poems half a dozen times. But I reread Ted Hughes' intro in which he states she had put the Ariel manuscript together in a very calculated assembly around Christmas of 1962, that it started with the word 'love' and ended with 'spring.' I couldn't sleep until I read them in that form. I took the poems to a copy shop and put them in the order given in the Collected Poems, so I had a road map. I was shocked to see that she had created a narrative that was utterly different from the Ariel we've all read. The story was of her own life, mythologized, but told in a way that gave a story of her future. Only one major article by a scholar had taken on this narrative. I felt like exploring it was a responsibility."

Why didn't Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, feel that same responsibility?
"He said he published Ariel in a chronological format because publishers were already familiar with some of the poems. You have to remember that she continued to write up until her death, and she was very efficient about getting her poems out. Many of those poems had already been published, and book editors wanted them even though Plath didn't want to include them. He agreed to re-edit it in chronological format and include those final poems. At the same time he removed several poems. The result was a very different book."

If Ariel had a message of hope, why did Plath despair in the end?
"She struggled against focusing on herself for many years. Very late in her life she started to realize that her true subject was herself. Her life gave her art. As she was putting the Ariel manuscript together she realized her art showed her how to live. The poems told her the way out of a seemingly untenable situation. Artistically she had achieved her greatest desire, but her life was still a shambles. She recognized that the art alone couldn't change the facts of her life."

Being the editor of "Mothers Who Think," did you get to know Plath as a mother?
"I started reading her when I was nine months pregnant with my first child, now 14. Morning Song is about a mother waking in the night to nurse her new baby. Original, uncanny evocation of complicated feelings that mothers feel. I remember thinking, 'This work is incredible, but how could she have left her children?' With 14 years of motherhood under my belt and the devastating end of a marriage, I actually do understand it now. She probably got to a point that she was psychologically and mentally exhausted. I think she was suffering from deep depression and wasn't rational. She probably thought her children were better off without her. She didn't make a plan for her children's futures. Protecting them from the gas fumes [she used to commit suicide] probably took all the energy she had left. That speaks to her irrationality. I don't think this was an act of rage but of desperation."

But her anger and pain makes those last poems ring with clarity.
"With her final poems--'Words,' 'Balloons,' 'Edge'--she was hanging on for dear life. I don't think she was saying goodbye. Ted Hughes, after the fact, has written poetically that he didn't understand how desperate she was. In the first letter he wrote to her mother, he says he's the guiltiest person in the world, mostly because he didn't understand that she really felt she couldn't live without him."

Why the fiction format?
"Fiction allows you to make subtle suggestions, offer resonances between a person's character and circumstances. I felt I could tell the story in a way that is more true. Her work will always resonate for me, but in some ways I really wrote it for her. I gave her that moment of perfection where she had actually gotten it all in balance. I feel very satisfied in that way."

How have readers responded?
"No other writer evokes this much passion. Some of the reviews show both extremes. I've gotten hate notes at readings. On the other hand, people who knew Sylvia Plath and cared for her contacted me and thanked me. She was a powerful poet because she translated the raw authenticity of her experience in the world, but it wasn't just raw emotion. She was carefully trained. She got that moment of perfection down on paper and it lives on. That was her greatest achievement."

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Kate Moses will give an interview on WHYY-91FM's Radio Times on Mon., March 17, 11am. She reads and signs Wintering on Tues., March 18, 7pm. Free. Borders, Broad and Chestnut sts. 215.568.7400. www.borders.com