A gifted amateur poet in her own right, Marilyn counted poets like Norman Rosten, Carl Sandburg and Edith Sitwell among her friends. She has also become something of a literary muse, inspiring poetry collections by Marilyn Bowering (Anyone Can See I Love You, 1987 – later the basis of an opera); Lyn Lifshin (Marilyn Monroe, 1994); Nellie McClung (My Sex is Ice Cream, 1996); and more recently, Carole Boston Weatherford’s ‘verse novel’, Beauty Mark (2020.)
On June 1st – Marilyn’s 95th birthday – Heidi Seaborn published her third poetry collection, An Insomniac’s Slumber Party With Marilyn Monroe. (The cover features a 1953 photo of Marilyn by Milton Greene.)
Heidi launched the book with a series of posts on the Best American Poetry blog which give further insights on her creative process. In ‘Marilyn Monroe, Poet‘ she analyses one of Marilyn’s most intricate poems; in ‘Selfie With Marilyn,‘ she discusses the challenges of writing in Marilyn’s voice; in ‘Plath, Sexton, and Monroe‘ she explores the parallels between Marilyn and her poetic contemporaries, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton; in ‘Poets Love Marilyn,’ she revisits famous poems by Edwin Morgan and Sharon Olds; and in ‘Marilyn Monroe’s Love of Poetry,’ she considers her subject’s reading habits. And on the Literary Hub blog, Heidi reveals her own battle with insomnia.
The Marilyn Report 
2 Comments
Comments are closed.