Advanced Higher English - Help on Sylvia Plath Poetry

I'm assuming that part of the reason you've not got a reply is because as you said people don't like giving people everything on a plate. As someone who did some Plath poetry for her AH dissertation, my best advice would be to go a library and get out some books about Plath, both in regard to her life and critical responses to her work.

My local library is rather small with regard to non-fiction; I have searched online but can only find forum-type websites, where anyone can pitch an opinion in, and half the time people say complete opposites.

I did Plath at higher (doing Heaney for AH) and looked at Daddy (briefly) and Lady Laz. (and Edge, Blackberrying, etc) so can maybe help a bit? The part that always amuses me in Lady Laz is when she starts going on about herself, "Dying/is an art, like everything else/I do it exceptionally well" which she clearly didn't, considering it took her three tries.

I had quite the Plath obsession for a bit, actually.

So yeah, I'll give it a go if you want but she isn't my AH poet. I have done a fair chunk of analysing/annotating Heaney on my own, though (we must have done circa 20 poems, we split them up and each person "teaches" their poems to the class (all three of us ) and prepares notes, and our teacher adds in anything we've missed).

Do you know if it's possible for your local library to get books transferred from other larger libraries in the area? I know that's possible at mine, might be something worth checking out.

Or, failing that, why don't you try buying a couple books on her works from the likes of Amazon? What about the York notes on her work, or the Cambridge companion?
If you do decide to invest in a couple books then check first on a price comparison site for books to make sure you're getting the best deal!

This is pretty much everything I can think of, failing giving you the 'answers' on a plate, and I'm sure it'll make much more sense and be conveyed much more clearly in your essays if it is something which is your own response to her work. Good luck!

20 poems! is all I have to say
Are you doing prose/drama too?
We were meant to be doing all 3 but then revolted against Hardy after finishing Tess of D'U (could not face doing Return of the Native!) - so now we're doing Plath and Shakespeare.
Must confess I've been rather lazy on the old poetry front - had better get some work done so I have something worthy to discuss!

And as for "own response" to poem, well I have to say that I never have had a really personal response to any (except "Wow, this is really boring" to Churchgoing by Larkin). Possibly weird, I know, but there you have it.

The part that always amuses me in Lady Laz is when she starts going on about herself, "Dying/is an art, like everything else/I do it exceptionally well" which she clearly didn't, considering it took her three tries.

Who says the speaker of the poem is Plath? Just because the genre is confessional, doesn't mean it is that easy to decipher everything in Plath's poems as necessarily the 'truth' about herself.