#julia gordon-bramer

[lovingsylvia]

!NEW RELEASE!

Title: The Occult Sylvia Plath: The Hidden Spiritual Life of the Visionary Poet

Author: Julia Gordon-Bramer

Publication date: 7 May 2024

Publisher: Inner Traditions

Pages: 416

Image source (cover & description):

https://www.innertraditions.com/

About the book:

"Sharing her more than 15 years of compelling research—including analysis of Sylvia Plath’s unpublished calendars, notebooks, scrapbooks, book annotations, and underlinings as well as published memoirs, biographies, letters, journals, and interviews with Plath and her husband, friends, and family—Plath scholar Julia Gordon-Bramer reveals Sylvia Plath’s enduring interest and active practice in mysticism and the occult from childhood until her tragic death in 1963. She examines Plath’s early years growing up in a transcendentalist Unitarian church under a brilliant, if stern, Freemason father and a mother who wrote her master’s dissertation on the famous alchemist Paracelsus. She reveals Plath’s early knowledge of Hermeticism, how she devoured books on the occult throughout her life, and how, since adolescence, Plath regularly wrote of premonitory dreams. Examining Plath’s tumultuous marriage with poet Ted Hughes, she looks at their explorations in the supernatural and Hughes’s mentoring of Plath in meditation, crystal-gazing, astrology, Qabalah, tarot, automatic writing, magical workings, and use of the Ouija board.

Looking at Plath’s writing and her evolution as a person through mystical, political, personal, and historical lenses, Gordon-Bramer shows how Plath’s poems take on radically new, surprising, and universal meanings—explaining why Hughes perpetually denied that Plath was a “confessional poet.” Contrasting the versions in Letters Home with those held in the Plath archives at Indiana University, the author also shows how all occult influences have been rigorously excised from the letters approved for publication by the Plath and Hughes estates. Revealing previously undiscovered meanings deeply rooted in her mystical and occult endeavors, the author shows how Plath’s writings are much broader than the narrow lens of her tragic autobiography."

[fixedstarsgovernalife]

Fist - I liked best / your hands; smooth, strong / Our fingers wrapped/ one for one / five for five / an even match with mine / Palms kissed / I could’ve fought /with you / forever after all/ together we/ made a whole/ beautiful/ terrible fist - Julia Gordon-Bramer #poetryofinstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn1UaQtHDse/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=wk2rfxhamiaw

[duewaworld]

This Monday, June 4th I will feature as a special guest at Women for Peace an annual event featuring amazing women artists! Produced by @susan_spitfire_lively at @urbarts_stl #StLouis. ❤️💙💜❤️💙💜 Women for Peace 5 Year Anniversary Show Produced & Hosted by Spit-Fire Monday, June 4th 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Urb Arts 2600 N. 14th Street St. Louis, MO www.urbarts.org Created in 2013 by Katerina Canyon and Susan 'Spit-Fire" Lively as an “artistic dedication from the women of St. Louis to the women of the world”; “Women for Peace” is a series dedicated to promoting Gender Violence Awareness. Show your love for women at the next installment of the show on Monday, June 4th at 7:00 p.m. when we'll commemorate the Five Year Anniversary of "Women for Peace" at Urb Arts in St. Louis! The series has featured many gifted local artists, including Mali Newman, Deborah Mashibini, JoyCe Blue, Erin Goss, Maria Teresa Balogh, Pamela Garvey, Stephanie “Surreal Sista” Williams, Maria Guadalupe Massey, Basmin Nadra, Patricia Merritt, Randi Bobby, X Blu Rayne, Dana “Kels” Kelly, Julia Gordon-Bramer, Shea Brown, Susan Trowbridge Adams, Layla Azmi Goushey, Kristy "Lightning" McKeown, Ree Cee, Sista Sols, Emily Nicole, Elayna Nicole, Emma Jean, Dacia Polk, FeliceSkye, DuEwa Frazier, Charisma Blue, Mari Carter, Tasha "Unspoken" Archie, Mz. Goldie, and Katarra Parson. The June mega-event will feature music, poetry, and spoken word; including performances by Lightning, Nostylgic Linez, Pamela Garvey, Allison Cundiff, Fifth Degree, Dani Skye, Bell Darris, Joss Barton, Nailah, and Ellen Cook. There will also be a live performance from Special Guest DuEwa Frazier. Lively produces and hosts the show, and 100% of proceeds will benefit the wonderful and enriching programs at UrbArts (www.urbarts.org ). Hope to see you there!