Sylvia’s Darlings with Commentary

ABSTRACT

“Sylvia’s Darlings with commentary” selectively recovers Sylvia Plath’s “darlings” that she left behind or strike-outs that she created on the way to writing Ariel. Interspersed with poetic arrangements of these fragments are Floyd Cheung’s reflections on his process and reactions, all the while asking, “What does it mean for a male Chinese American immigrant English professor to engage with these traces of a famous female white American poet?”

KEYWORDS:

• Sylvia Plath
• immigration
• teaching
• equity and inclusion
• Asian Americans in media

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Floyd Cheung

Floyd Cheung teaches in the Department of English and American Studies Program at Smith College, where he is currently serving as the Vice President for Equity and Inclusion. His scholarship focuses on the recovery of lesser-known Asian American literature including The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration (Penguin, 2024), co-edited with Frank Abe. Cheung is author of the poetry chapbook Jazz at Manzanar (Finishing Line, 2014).