I just finished watching "Sylvia," which featured Gwyneth Paltrow as the doomed poetess, Sylvia Plath [Hughes]. What is it about women poets before the 1970s and suicide?

For men, being a poet was currency (and still is), like being a drummer in a rock band (as put forth by a Washington Post film reviewer in one of his articles). Even though no famous women poets have committed suicide (not that was publicized, in any case) lately, it is not the same for us. Gaggles of admiring males don't bum rush the podium after readings to twitter and giggle, or to posture and preen like little sick animals.

I have known of two men that my work touched deeply, even somewhat romantically...but universal appeal of a woman poet? Not so much.

I am not suggesting that this lack of the celebrity factor is why Plath and Sexton did themselves in (or that it accounts for Millay's self-destructive behavior that led to death)...but something about the proclivity toward poetry in a woman has its root in a particular kind of sadness, or so it would seem.