In Remembrance: Sylvia Plath

Today would have been Sylvia Plath's 87th birthday. Although there is much controversy surrounding her death in 1963 and her marriage with Ted Hughes, I don't want to focus on any of those things. Today I want to shed light on her writings.

Am I fan of Sylvia Plath? I don't know - I can't say. And perhaps this post will be oddly amusing to some of you because of that. Why would I write a post about a poet and author that I don't know how I feel about? Well, because in some ways I can't help but feel intensely connected to her.

When I read The Bell Jar, I hated it. Perhaps one day I will revisit it and discover that it holds a strong truth for me. Perhaps I read it at the wrong time, or reading about depression was too true and I just found it bleak and colourless. I don't know. But when I read about her, I feel connected to her soul. Some of her poems resonate with me strongly.

Here are a few pieces of her writings that mean a lot to me personally:

Cinderella

The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,

Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan

Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels

Begin on tilted violins to span

The whole revolving tall glass palace hall

Where guests slide gliding into light like wine;

Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall

Reflecting in a million flagons' shine,

And glided couples all in whirling trance

Follow holiday revel begun long since,

Until near twelve the strange girl all at once

Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince

As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk

She hears the caustic ticking of the clock.

Apprehensions

There is this white wall, above which the sky creates itself-

Infinite, green, utterly untouchable.

Angels swim in it, and the stars, in indifference also.

They are my medium.

The sun dissolves on this wall, bleeding its lights.

A grey wall now, clawed and bloody.

Is there no way out of the mind?

Steps at my back spiral into a well.

There are no trees or birds in this world,

There is only sourness.

This red wall winces continually:

A red fist, opening and closing,

Two grey, papery bags-

This is what i am made of, this, and a terror

Of being wheeled off under crosses and rain of pietas.

On a black wall, unidentifiable birds

Swivel their heads and cry.

There is no talk of immorality among these!

Cold blanks approach us: 

They move in a hurry.

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

For anyone who wants to know more about her life, or already does, I read this interesting article about her daughter recently about the impact of the controversy surrounding her parents:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-4587992/Frieda-Hughes-parents-secrets-haunt-her.html

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Poems have been obtained from All Poetry, and quotes from Goodreads.

Have you previously read any work from Sylvia Plath? What do you know about her? Do you have any authors or poets you connect to, even if you don't like a lot of their work?