Strange to think it is only the 60th anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s death. She was only thirty. She might still be alive, if she had not taken her own life.

We could ask what else she might have achieved if she had lived, just as with any other artist that died young, just as with any other artist that died at all, just as with anyone else at all. Even if Plath had never written another poem—which, for more than most other poets, I think would be an impossibility—she would still be alive.

I suppose the only practical purpose in wondering what she might have done is that it can inspire us to help those living now with mental health issues.

“I’m no more your mother

Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow

Effacement at the wind’s hand.” —from Morning Song, by Sylvia Plath