Today is the birthday of Sylvia Plath, the acclaimed poet and author of The Bell Jar. To mark the day, listen to this short (14 minute) interview with Plath. In the interview, which was done in 1962, the year before she died by suicide, Plath talks about what first drew her to writing poetry, her strong affinity for America even as she lived in England, and her interest in mental hospitals and nervous breakdowns.

Plath also discusses how her German and Austrian family background affected her view of the Holocaust and concentration camps, which feature prominently in her poem “Daddy.” “My concern with concentration camps and so on,” she says, “is uniquely intense.”

You can read “Daddy” here.