Monthly Archives: October 2012

Anatomy of a Stamp: Sylvia Plath

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Today we celebrate writer Sylvia Plath’s 80th birthday. Plath (1932–1963) was honored along with nine other poets on the Twentieth-Century Poets stamp sheet, which was issued earlier this year.

In depicting Plath on the stamp, art director Derry Noyes considered a couple of different options. Early in the stamp development process, Noyes worked with an artist Maira Kalman to create a colorful and lively portrait based on a picture of the artist that the U.S. Postal Service borrowed from the Special Collections library at Smith College, Plath’s alma mater. The art featured the artist’s own handwritten lines from one of Plath’s best-known poems, “Daddy”:

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe

Design direction sometimes changes, however, and USPS ultimately opted to use a black-and-white photograph of Plath, as well as each of her contemporaries featured on the stamps, instead of having the poet’s portrait illustrated. USPS again chose the resources of a rich archival collection, this time working with archivists at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. There they found a picture of Plath by the talented photographer Rollie McKenna.

Twentieth-Century Poets Digital Color Postmark Keepsake

Plath’s life events and her poems are famously intertwined. Readers admire her unvarnished examination of life’s complexities, contradictions, and daily challenges, and the ways in which she expressed her own highs and lows in a raw and direct style. In the photograph, Plath sits on a sofa or chair and regards the camera’s presence obliquely, perhaps lost in thought and contemplating new verse.

McKenna’s picture of Plath was taken in 1959. Four years later, less than six months after her thirty-first birthday, Plath ended her life. McKenna’s photograph, among the many others that captured Plath’s intelligence and youthful beauty, is—like Plath’s small but potent body of writing—a touchstone for her legions of devotees.

Quoth the Raven: Feeling the Spirit of Halloween

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The Halloween season brings with it a noticeable chill in the air, moody days, longer nights, and the thrilling promise of some fun fright or another. At this time of year, we can’t help but think of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), one of America’s most masterful storytellers. Out of his vivid imagination leapt such terrifying tales as “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” His “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” featuring the brilliant investigator C. Auguste Dupin, may have been the first detective story ever written.

And then, of course, there is “The Raven” (1845):

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door—
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

So begins this remarkable poetic masterpiece. The narrator, mourning the death of the beautiful woman he loved, is seized with “fantastic terrors” at each knock. Finally, several stanzas later, he opens the door:

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the work, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.

Another sound leads him to open the window and in steps a raven:

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Is the raven “bird or fiend”? Will the narrator ever reunite with his “lost Lenore”? You’ll have to read the rest of the poem to find out . . .

Edgar Allan Poe was honored with a stamp in 2009. Panes of the stamp have sold out, but a block of four Poe stamps is included with Happy Halloween!

Happy Birthday to Poet Denise Levertov

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Happy birthday, Denise Levertov! One of ten poets featured on the Twentieth-Century Poets stamp sheet issued earlier this year, the award-winning Levertov was born on this day in 1923.

Levertov drew her poetry from her own experiences, and she encouraged her readers to open themselves up fully to the world, to find answers to universal questions by looking inward. As she explains in “Pleasures”:

I like to find
what’s not found
at once, but lies

within something of another nature,
in repose, distinct.

In her poems, public and private form a single universe in which fairy tales and myths mingle with the objects and events of everyday life.

Have a favorite poem by Levertov? Join the birthday celebration and share it with us in the comments.

“Denise Levertov”, 1953
Photograph by Rollie McKenna
@ Rosalie Thorne McKenna Foundation
Courtesy Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona Foundation

It’s Adopt-A-Dog Month & You Could Win!

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The American Humane Association has designated October Adopt-A-Dog Month®. To celebrate, we are giving away two Animal Rescue: Adopt A Shelter Pet stamps t-shirts. (Please note: Both t-shirts are size adult small.) To win, all you have to do is answer the following question correctly:

The Animal Rescue: Adopt A Shelter Pet stamps were unveiled March 17, 2010, on which television show?

To enter, send your answer to uspsstamps [at] gmail [dot] com. The winner will be selected at random and notified by email. You have until 11:59 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, October 24, to enter. Good luck!

Environmentalist Lady Bird Johnson To Be Immortalized on Stamp

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Forty-seven years ago today, Congress signed into law the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, known as “Lady Bird’s Bill” because of Lady Bird Johnson’s keen interest and active support of its passage. We are delighted to announce today that the U.S. Postal Service will celebrate this and other of Mrs. Johnson’s achievements with the release of the Lady Bird Johnson Souvenir Forever stamps sheet.

The dedication ceremony, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 11 a.m. on November 30, 2012, at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas.

“The Postal Service is proud to issue this historic Forever stamp honoring a beloved First Lady who worked tirelessly to make the United States a more beautiful place,” says Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. “Lady Bird Johnson’s legacy lives on along our nation’s roadsides, and urban parks and trails, which she so diligently worked to preserve and beautify, and now on a U.S. postage stamp to commemorate her contributions for forever.”

To learn more about Lady Bird Johnson (1912–2007) and events celebrating the centennial of her birth, visit the Lady Bird Johnson Centennial website. You can preorder the souvenir sheet now for delivery in early December by visiting The Postal Store or by calling 800-STAMP-24.