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1. Read this article from Psychology Today on Plath and how her teenage fans romanticize  her mental illness and suicide.  How much do you think Plath’s biography plays into readers’ reception of her work? Is it important to know of the poet’s mental illness and her early death? Why or why not?


2. In this interview on the Modern American Poetry website, Plath discusses her poetry with Peter Orr in 1962. Do any of Plath’s answers surprise you? Why or why not? Do you agree with Plath that she’s a thoroughly America poet? What poems stand out as particularly American and why?




3. Read this “Brief Guide to Confessional Poetry” on the Academy of American Poets website.  Would you consider “Mirror” or any other of Plath’s poems from the text “confessional”?