Enid Mark Lecture

4:30 p.m.
Doors open, Neilson Library Browsing Room

5 p.m.
Lecture begins (livestreamed for pre-registered virtual guests)

6:15 p.m.
Reception, Neilson Library Skyline Room

Co-Editors Amanda Golden and Karen V. Kukil will discuss editing “The Poems of Sylvia Plath” (Faber & Faber, 2026), a new, annotated, scholarly edition that draws extensively on the manuscripts, typescripts, and other artifacts in Smith College Special Collections. This event also commemorates the thirtieth anniversary of “About Sylvia,” a book published by Plath’s friend and classmate Enid Epstein Mark (Smith 1954) for the ELM Press. Plath dedicated three poems to Enid, who generously placed the manuscripts in Special Collections; their contents were a vital contribution to “The Poems of Sylvia Plath.”

Faber & Faber has called “The Poems of Sylvia Plath" a landmark publication: the definitive edition of the poet’s work for scholars, students, and general readers. Plath’s first "Collected Poems" was published in 1981. This new volume draws on decades of research and almost doubles the content of that edition. The book is in two parts: the first contains the poems Plath composed in the last ten years of her life and upon which her reputation is founded, and the second includes those poems written in childhood and through her student years. In both sections, the editors have dated, corrected, and arranged each poem chronologically, drawing on archival material. Critical notes document and cast new light on Plath’s extraordinary evolution as a poet, from her childhood compositions, through the early blossoming of her talent and ambition, and into the molten core that was to shape the poems of her last few years, securing her place in literary history.

Registration is encouraged for in-person attendees; it is required for virtual attendees.

Register and learn more about the Enid Mark Lecture.