STAFF PHOTO/DAN LITTLEĪ recent forum at Smith College on Sylvia Plath, held just a few days after the famous poet would have turned 90, celebrated her legacy as a writer and a feminist. STAFF PHOTO/DAN LITTLEīiographer Heather Clark, left, and Judith Raymo discuss Clark’s biography on Sylvia Plath, “Red Comet,” earlier this week at Smith College. Raymo, a Smith graduate, has donated many books and writing by Plath to the college. Judith Raymo, right, speaks with biographer Heather Clark during a discussion at Smith College about poet Sylvia Plath. She calls Plath “one of the most important women writers of the 20th century.” STAFF PHOTO/DAN LITTLE

Heather Clark, left, is the author of “Red Comet,” a recent biography on poet Sylvia Plath. Judith Raymo, right, and biographer Heather Clark discuss Clark’s biography on Sylvia Plath, “Red Comet,” earlier this week at Smith College.

CONTRIBUTEDīeth Myers, right, director of Smith College Special Collections, introduces Judith Raymo, middle, and biographer Heather Clark, left, at a discussion at the college about one of its most noted graduates, Sylvia Plath. In her 2020 biography of Sylvia Plath, a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, Heather Clark tapped previously unaccessed materials to produce what The New Yorker calls “a new understanding and appreciation of an innovative, uncompromising poetic voice.”īefore she died, Plath published one poetry collection, “The Colossus and Other Poems,” and the novel “The Bell Jar,” a semi-autobiographical account of her suicide attempt in 1953, when she was still a Smith student, and the subsequent time she spent in a psychiatric hospital. A 1954 portrait of Sylvia Plath after she dyed her hair dark brown to accentuate her “serious, intellectual side.” PHOTO BY Warren Kay Vantine/courtesy Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College

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