Great Regulars: Here's a lede that might send you to your room

with the vapors: "As a rule the work of women poets is marked by intensity of feeling and fineness of perception rather than by outstanding technical accomplishment." So writes Bernard Bergonzi in The Guardian in 1960 about Sylvia Plath's first book, The Colossus.

Aiyiyi! Bergonzi's CYA rejoinder is hardly better: "Miss Sylvia Plath is, however, a young American poetess whose work is most immediately noticeable for the virtuoso qualities of its style." Oh, the days when we had dukes and duchesses, poets and poetesses!

from David Biespiel's Poetry Wire: The Rumpus: Searching for Sylvia Plath

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