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Lucy Tunstall's avatar

I loved this reading of 'Balloons', particularly the vacuum-balloon connection! For me, the most curious thing about the publication/editing of Plath's poems is why no-one has ever collected the last poems, the ones Hughes seemed to think she was saving for a third book. This would include those last twelve poems from the completed 'Sheep in Fog' to 'Edge' and 'Balloons.' Given how Plath sells, why no last poems collection? I cannot understand it. It can be persuasively argued that we have the beginnings of what Plath’s intended as her third book -- a very different prospect to seeing them as a chunk of the Collected - why has this never been made available as a slim volume of its own? They are a hard-earned (See Hughes on the revisions of 'Sheep in Fog’) departure from Ariel and I think such a volume could change our reading of her work as a whole. That’s my (lengthy) two pennyworth, anyway. Cheers.

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Mike Sims's avatar

This is a lovely piece. There's another balloon in Winnie the Pooh – the present that Piglet gives Eeyore but excitedly bursts before he hands it over. Eeyore finds something to enjoy in what's left of it.

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