Anyu Ching

Rarely is a letter felt, both literally and figuratively, by anyone other than the person it is addressed to and from. It is even rarer—should that opportunity ever be upon us—to discover that the message enclosed is one that affects us all. In The Serious World, Laura Read grants us these rarities, cracking open the wax seal to reveal a collection of 28 epistolary poems written to Sylvia Plath surrounding life, death, and everything in between.

The author of four poetry collections as well as an educator at both Spokane Falls Community College and the MFA program at Eastern Washington University, Read is no stranger to the form, nor is she a stranger to herself. And though the subjects explored in The Serious World—including feminism, motherhood, and even Plath—aren’t dissimilar to the ones captured in previous publications (Read’s 2023 But She Is Also Jane begins with an epigraph from The Bell Jar), Read manages to create a fresh and deeply touching collection that argues that while the sentiments expressed may not be wholly original, that may be the whole point.

The Serious World opens with “Mademoiselle Summer,” with Read writing:

I had one too, Sylvia,

I mean a summer in New York,

though I was only 9, and you were 21,

and you were writing for Mademoiselle

and I was only being called mademoiselle

by my grandpa who addressed me

as Mademoiselle Lorraine because

I wanted to go to France.

Many of her poems in the collection begin exactly like this, with an open nod to Plath, before Read overlays her own perspective on the salute like fabric draped over a windowpane. Sometimes it lines up almost perfectly, like in “Mademoiselle Summer,” when both Plath and Read spent a summer in New York, or in “Infinity,” which touches upon similar struggles involving mental health, or in “The Woman in Love,” where Plath is quite literally a figure in Read’s life:

Sylvia, I just want you to know that even though

I am sometimes bored by the 900 pages

of your short life, I did tell my philosophy class

about you in my presentation on Beauvoir’s

Woman in Love. 

In addition to Simone de Beauvoir, Read also makes repeated references to Marguerite Duras and Annie Ernaux, invoking a certain—albeit white—feminist lens throughout the collection. By drawing parallels between herself and these women, Read highlights through confessional poetry the female or more specifically, the female writer, experience. In unadorned language, The Serious World contends that key attitudes surrounding motherhood and matrilineality transcend time and space, page to page.

If Read’s frame of mind can be likened to a piece of fabric over Plath’s windowpane, then the most magical moments in The Serious World occur in the spaces where the two don’t quite line up, for it is in those gaps that Read’s light can truly shine through. One particular standout is “Not Ideal” and its opening sentence, which felt like a breath of fresh air:

I am trying to remember what my face

used to look like

so I can draw it on.

Or the last line of “Griselda,” when that breath was promptly taken away:

When Ann and I were young,

she would pick me up for school

in her green Buick

which she’d named Griselda,

and I would always have to put

my mascara on in the car,

and she would say,

Why can’t you be on time, even once?

Bruce Hornsby was singing,

Listen to the mandolin rain,

and it was actually raining,

and Griselda was driving through it,

wide and low like a boat,

and Ann’s mom was at home,

being alive.

Every word in The Serious World has been carefully penned, with as much devotion as intention, for its ability to shock, amuse, comfort, amaze, and feel, and feel. There is something about Read’s world that speaks to everyone, whether you are familiar with Plath or not. The Serious World beckons us to stand up tall in front of the shaded window and to look out into the beyond. It is only then that we can catch a glimpse of our true, unfiltered selves.