Sylvia Plath was born to middle class parents in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts; she published her first poem when she was eight. Her father was a professor of entomology, when he past away he left psychological scars on Sylvia when she was eight. Her mother worked teaching in a medical/secretarial program at Boston University. By the time she entered Smith College on a scholarship in 1950 she already had an impressive list of publications. During the summer following her junior year at Smith, she returned from a stay in New York City where she had been a student ``guest editor'' at Mademoiselle Magazine, Sylvia nearly succeeded in