Plath is one of my favourite authors, and I was wondering your views on her.
Also, I am trying to find a poem by her, but I can't remember what it is called - she finds a dead snake and describes it in great detail. Can anyone help?
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Plath is one of my favourite authors, and I was wondering your views on her.
Also, I am trying to find a poem by her, but I can't remember what it is called - she finds a dead snake and describes it in great detail. Can anyone help?
I love her work, I only have her book 'Ariel' but I have looked at a lot on the internet.
I am sorry I don't know the poem you talked about, do you remember any lines of it?...
I cannot recall which poem you search for, Raven, but I will continue looking.
Meanwhile, a few of my favorites by Sylvia Plath:
The Moon and the Yew Tree
This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs at my feet as if I were God,
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.
Fumy spiritious mists inhabit this place
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.
The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky -
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection.
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.
The yew tree points up. It has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness -
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.
I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars.
Inside the church, the saints will be all blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness - blackness and silence.
---
Daddy
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time---
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been sacred of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You----
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.
If I've killed one man, I've killed two---
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
---
Love Letter
Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just toe me an inch, no--
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.
That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter--
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chiseled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheek of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.
And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I saw was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in a dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mica-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.
Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, an arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.
---
By the way, I found a site featuring much of Plath's poetry: http://www.stanford.edu/class/engl18...plathpoem.html
No, sorry I don't remember it.
Actually, I think I may have just found it...could it possibly be Snakecharmer?
Hello there, welcome :wave:
Maybe it'll help if you posted the poem :)
I'm not quite sure if this is the poem Raven is talking about, but:
Snakecharmer
As the gods began one world, and man another,
So the snakecharmer begins a snaky sphere
With moon-eye, mouth-pipe. He pipes. Pipes green. Pipes water.
Pipes water green until green waters waver
With reedy lengths and necks and undulatings.
And as his notes twine green, the green river
Shapes its images around his songs.
He pipes a place to stand on, but no rocks,
No floor: a wave of flickering grass tongues
Supports his foot. He pipes a world of snakes,
Of sways and coilings, from the snake-rooted bottom
Of his mind. And now nothing but snakes
Is visible. The snake-scales have become
Leaf, become eyelid; snake-bodies, bough, breast
Of tree and human. And he within this snakedom
Rules the writhings which make manifest
His snakehood and his might with pliant tunes
From his thin pipe. Out of this green nest
As out of Eden's navel twist the lines
Of snaky generations: let there be snakes!
And snakes there were, are, will be--till yawns
Consume this piper and he tires of music
And pipes the world back to the simple fabric
Of snake-warp, snake-weft. Pipes the cloth of snakes
To a melting of green waters, till no snake
Shows its head, and those green waters back to
Water, to green, to nothing like a snake.
Puts up his pipe, and lids his moony eye.
If it is what Raven wanted s/he's resognise it or not, and people might enjoy reading it even if it's not what Raven was looking for :)
I’m surprised to see Plath discussed so little on this forum. In Annie Hall, Woody Allen describes her as an:
"Interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college-girl mentality."
Perhaps that’s the problem. Plath’s poetry is as misrepresented by those who idolise her as it is by those who dismiss her. To many teenage, predominantly female admirers, Plath is the literary equivalent of Kurt Cobain. To many others, she is merely a death-obsessed neurotic. The most difficult task for anyone coming to her poetry for the first time is to try to ignore both camps and focus on the poems themselves. Yes, Plath writes about pain, suffering, her obsession with her father and death, but she does so with clarity and precision.
‘Ariel’ is a remarkable work full of pain, tenderness and darkness. Harsh and dark though her poems are, they precisely and unflinchingly record those moments when no one and nothing can reach us. She is a forensic witness to the inevitability of our own demise. In The Night Dances a mother watches her child asleep and moving around in its cot. These moments seem to be the beautiful gifts of innocence. They create in her a sense of fullness of being which, momentarily, lightens “the black amnesias of heaven.” But it is only momentarily. The contrast between the cold blankness of space and the baby’s movements (“their pink light/ Bleeding and peeling”) makes us aware of the fragility and vulnerability of such “blessings”. And that is why the ending is just right in its ambiguity. The ‘light’ of the night dances can never be destroyed and will nowhere be forgotten. But “Nowhere” can also imply that they touch and melt in the nothingness that is all there is. In other words, perhaps the blessings are nothing, that they are too insubstantial too wipe away the “black amnesias” for long.
The Night Dances
A smile fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!
And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics?
Such pure leaps and spirals ----
Surely they travel
The world forever, I shall not entirely
Sit emptied of beauties, the gift
Of your small breath, the drenched grass
Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.
Their flesh bears no relation.
Cold folds of ego, the calla,
And the tiger, embellishing itself ----
Spots, and a spread of hot petals.
The comets
Have such a space to cross,
Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off ----
Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling
Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given
These lamps, these planets
Falling like blessings, like flakes
Six sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair
Touching and melting.
Nowhere.
Great poem.
I love Plath we discussed her in class on time and now i love her. I don't know if i can help you but a friend of mine is doing a report on her and i can ask her for help on it i'll ask her and get back sometime soon.
She's extraordinary, and one of my biggest inspirations in a literary sense. Her life and her works were both beautiful things... sad and stunning. I like a lot of her poems, but "Daddy", "Mad Girl's Love Song", "Suicide Off Egg Rock", and "Edge" are my current favourites. It's wonderful to see others who appreciate her.
Does anyone here like Anne Sexton? Her style is quite different, but she's often sided with Plath when it comes to pain-stricken, descriptive poets. I think they actually took a writing class together once.
What do you make of the last four lines of ‘Edge’?Quote:
Originally Posted by Astrid
"The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag."
This thread, and others , has convinced me to buy a book of Plath's poetry tomorrow to add to my collection. Something with Nightdancers, Balloons and kindness, if I can find one. I hope you're all happy at driving me to such spendthriftiness!
btw can anyone shed any light on whether the Bell Jar is worth reading? I've heard mixed things, but of course those things are from people, who are a mixed bunch.
Buy Ariel – it’s not very long and if you read nothing else by Plath, that slim volume will leave you with a very good idea of what she’s about. My own view of The Bell Jar is that it was written when she was very young and that this shows.
PS I love your placement of the second comma in that last sentence. ;)
Now. Is that irony?Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
The comma, as all commas, implies a pause. With the pause present all people are included in the clause, "who are a mixed bunch." Without the pause the implication is that only the people that I have heard these things from constitute the "mixed bunch". I certainly intended the former.
If this is wrong, appo-polly-logies and please feel free to correct my grammar. My degree is in mathematics and teaching, not english.
And if you're not being ironic, for heaven's sake explain why you have broken the habit of a lunchtime and caused me such confusion?
I will see if I can get hold of Ariel. Thanks.
No - I genuinely liked it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
Of which I approve. I was in no way trying to correct your grammar – which seems to be of a high level of correctness to me (and no, I am not being ironic). You write very well and I nearly always enjoy reading your posts. I don’t say ‘always’ because sometimes you are really mean to me and I have to discuss it with my shrink (now I am being ironic - my shrink committed suicide after three sessions :D ).Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
I don't want people thinking I'm incapable of recognising something good, funny or interesting. It was precisely your 'former' meaning that I enjoyed. In other words, I was praising you, albeit in my own curmudgeonly way. My advice is to take it wherever you can get it. :nod:Quote:
Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe
actually i've experienced Plath once, but i 've grown up with Kurt Cobain.
I'm not agree with the one who compared Silvia Plath with Kurt Cobain.
Kurt said during an interview "i must be one of those narcisist who only appreciate things when they're gone". This sentence in my opinion fits very well with his personality and also explains the difference between them.
Suicide is not enough to compare them. I love Kurt ,but being honnest, i don't think he killed himself because of his pain. Drugs destroied him and not his pain. Anyway i don't know very much about Plath, so it's possible i'm wrong about it.
Can you please tell me wht's the similarity between them i'm curious.
I don’t think there is any similarity. In the past, I’ve taught her poetry to 18 year olds. Some hated her, some loved her and some idolised her, often because they considered suicide romantic and rebellious (I don’t). I was making a comment that backed up what Woody Allen had said - "Interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college-girl mentality."Quote:
Originally Posted by michela
Here's what I said:
“To many teenage, predominantly female admirers, Plath is the literary equivalent of Kurt Cobain.”
The fact of her suicide seems to impress some readers more than her poetry.
Unnamable,
My turn to apologise. I accept your praise. It was curmudgeonly of me to doubt your sincerity (well, on this occasion at least). ;)
Michela,
Plath and Cobain had lot's of other things in common apart from suicide. Both were blond. And...erm...well that's about all I can think of at the moment (unless Cobain had a marriage to Ted Hughes that I missed hearing about).
"Her blacks crackle and drag" is debateably Plath's worst line, but I think there's something in it. It all seems very final, accepting, which makes a relative amount of sense since this was written about a week or two before Plath committed suicide.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
I agree with you about the sense of finality but I like the lines even though I have always found them difficult to comprehend. Perhaps she is talking about some breakdown in communication – like the static from a radio. So communication is replaced by noise in the final line. There is no one to mourn the woman, except the moon, who simply accepts it all as a part of nature.Quote:
Originally Posted by Astrid
Another possibility is that the blacks are blacks in the sense of a theatrical backdrop – suggesting everything is a performance. No doubt there are many more possibilities.
The poem includes simple, blunt statements and the use of the third person – there is no longer any ‘I’ and the predominant mood seems to be one of indifference. There is some questioning of the unembellished factuality of the opening end-stopped line: the body ‘wears the smile of accomplishment’ (so it is something that is ‘put on’); there is only the ‘illusion of a Greek necessity’ and the “Feet seem to be saying”. However, it’s as if it doesn’t matter whether ‘wears’, ‘illusion’ and ‘seem’ introduce a note of uncertainty. Human questions are voiced in the presence of cold indifference.
"Her blacks crackle and drag" has lovely assonance and a collection of hard consonants that draw the attention to it, thus hinting at some harsh significance. But I have been pouring over this for a few days and I really can't grasp the meaning of the last few lines. My only ideas are that Plath is drawing attention to the smallness of what has happened when viewed from the moon's (ie. cosmic) perspective. The last line completely foxed me though, I must say.
I am glad to hear that Unnamable's planet-sized mind struggles with these lines too, I guess that's why he asked for opinions. The rest of the poem is very straightforward (or is it? ;)) but the mood changes at the end to something hidden and obscure. I'm not sure if I'm describing it quite right but the last lines definitely have a different mood about them.
I really wonder what I would have made of this poem if I didn't know of the circumstances in which it was written. I guess that, like the meaning of the last lines, I'll never know for sure.
The more I am reading her work the more it takes me back to a terrible part of my life and I really identify with a lot of her anguish which in turn is a gift in a way as far as I am concerned. I don't think that happiness per se = quality of life at all. I feel if you have to walk a certain walk and noone else in the world comprehends or gives a care that in no way diminishes the satisfaction you get from walking that walk.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
A lot of people I know of don't like the Silmarillion or the Unfinished Tales by JRR Tolkien because of the awfulness, the harshness and brutality of the lives of the heros and heroines. I don't agree. The stood for something, they pursued something that mattered to them and win or lose or draw was not the point. The point is they just went and did it. I feel like that when I read Plath. She observes things in a harsh painful way but it is truer and more beautiful than I can describe.
Greetings all. I'm new at this, so forgive me if I appear all too ignorant. I've only recently been introduced to Plath's poetry, and a cursory glance of ''Letter in November'' led me to consider the possibility of a sexual reading. I was wondering if I am alone in my peversity, or if others can see the connections? Or if not, could someone give me pointers for this particular poem?
It is not as simple as some, and being unaware of the nuances of Plath's poetry, I have so far been unsuccessful in analysing it.
From a cursory glance at the poem, reading sexual imagery into the poem seems very much intended by Plath. The language is sensual, evocative of autumn, mud, rolling in grass, but those same sensual descriptions do function on a sexual level as well. Mud and spring also happens to be kind of a symbolic trope for sexuality in a lot of poetry.Quote:
Originally Posted by Timberly.Gray
Plath's autobiographical novel, "The Bell Jar", is probably almost as responsible for her fame as her poetry is. It's excellent (and it lauds electro-shock therapy as being very effective, if I remember correctly).
Clearly it treated Plath's depression effectively...Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecurb
I haven't read the novel for a couple of decades, but in the book (which is fictional) she claims it snapped her out of her depressions. The autobiographical heroine of the novel is a college-age girl. I believe Plath did undergo electorshock therapy at that age, but I have no idea whether she received any in the last 10 years of her life (maybe it would have saved her).Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Plath's friend A. Alverez wrote a good book on suicide ("the Savage God") in which he discusses Plath's suicide at length.
In ther poem "Edge" Plath wrore:
We have come so far, it is over.
Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little
Pitcher of milk, now empty.
Before she killed herself, Plath put out two mugs of milk for her children, as if poetry was adumbrating her demise.
Dorothy Parker attemped suicide at least twice, and wrote a poem about it:
Résumé
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
I'm glad I'm not far off then -- thank you. As I said, I'm new to Plath, but this poem left me with an overpowering feeling of almost-orgasmic warmth. In comparison to other poems I've read of hers, there is a sense of brightness and clarity, but several of the metaphors contain something a little darker.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
All just cursory observations. But thank you.
Sorry to break the flow, but I wanted to add that I am now inspired to read some of her poetry. It is so good to read some of her stuff here. She write poetry like a woman, not a man. Her subject matter is written from a woman's perspective.
I read the Bell Jar and if you are interested in understanding her as a person, read this book. An if you can identify with her, the read is a page turner.
I myself am a huge fan of the work of Plath and I heard someone make mention as to why she is not discussed more often around her, and from my experiences with comments I have heard others make in the past, there seems to be a certain stigma towards Plath, and an attitude held that the reason why Plath is so popular is primarily because of the nature of her death which has created around her a cult like following. There is a belief that it is the sort of fascination about her suicide which causes people to read her work.
There seems to be this general feeling among some that Plath as a whole was a mediocre writer, and if she had not been so infamous, people would not think so much of her work.
The couple of times I had tried to bring up Plath I was surprised by the overwhelming negative responses which I received from others. I was quite surprised and happy to see how much more positive response this thread has attracted.
SLEEP IN THE MOJOVE DESERT
Out here there are no hearthstones,
Hot grains, simply. It is dry, dry.
And the air dangerous. Noonday acts queerly
On the mind’s eye, erecting a line
Of poplars in the middle distance, the only
Object beside the mad, straight road
One can remember men and houses by.
A cool wind should inhabit those leaves
And a dew collect on them, dearer than money,
In the blue hour before sunup.
Yet they recede, untouchable as tomorrow,
Or those glittery fictions of spilt water
That glide ahead of the very thirsty.
I think of the lizards airing their tongues
In the crevice of an extremely small shadow
And the toad guarding his heart’s droplet.
The desert is white as a blind man’s eye,
Comfortless as salt. ...{excerpt}
plath is a great writer. i don't see how someone could argue against that. her imagery is immaculate, intense, almost demonic in some senses, but as she neared the end of her life, the fervor with which she wrote increased. she knew her time was coming. you have to bear that in mind when you read works like Ariel. The Bell Jar is a book of immense quality. she had one of the most fully realized voices in history, and i think that is her legacy. however, my personal opinion is that in some ways, she ruined modern poetry by creating cults of writers obsessed with the confessional poetry genre. confessional poetry not done 'right' is absolutely horrid. these teenage angst poems with cliche's and dark themes stem from an absolute elementary level of what she went out to accomplish. it's kind of like the people that say that michael jordan destroyed basketball by his image which pressured young players into abandoning fundamentals, great as he was.
Well, stated. Thank you for articulating her literary validity so well. I agree that she wrote with a unique tormented voice. This quality defines her and humanity's fascination with troubled people. I thought the Bell Jar was beautifully written and deeply observant of the human conditions as well as our need for caring human relationships. I am not a well versed person to her poetry, but what I have read is worthy of acknowledgment.
I'll go against as, as her literary hysterics are merely gimmicky pretensions - explain how her upper-middle class educated upbringing warrants a comparison with a Jew in Auschwitz and I'll listen, but we read her for the perceived nearly pornographic violence of images in her poem, which are merely constructed out of our obsession with the way she died. Something like daddy shows a bratty girl. As for creating a cult of "confessional poets," that would be Lowell and Roethke, the latter of which I particularly admire, who Plath followed too - in truth, Ariel wasn't even published in her lifetime.Quote:
Originally Posted by dyne7
I guess in terms of influence, I will quote Woody Allen in Annie Hall, when his character Andie says, "Oh Sylvia Plath, whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the schoolgirl mentality." Truth be told, the Bell Jar is a meh book, and her poems are simply an annoying girl ranting against a world that offered her opportunity and privilege. The bit about being depressed over her husband is a biographical misinterpretation, to quote woody again "misinterpreting as romantic" a rather egocentric, conceited suicidal hack.
By that logic should we discredit Childe Harold and The Sorrows of Young Werther, they were both two individuals which needn't have worked a day in their entire lives and yet both were irrevocably depressed with their condition. Suffering can be both physical and mental, a person from the upper-classes can suffer just as much as one from the lower classes even though the former has far less problems in terms of practical reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Or is your complaint rather than in regards to the subject of her book rather the style which you find lackluster ?
I have not read the bell jar so I could not comment in that regard.
Well, exagerated, but Plath is just ok. Bell Jar is not a great book by any length. Interesting, she is good with words, some poems are fine. But that is all. As much her myth helps to increase the power of her poems (much as Byron, Poe, Keats, etc) she did not enough to be as great, just a good poetress.
i must respectfully disagree with some of our users here. her IMAGERY is solid stuff. pain is both mental and physical, and i myself write of experiences i've never undergone. everyone has their limit. two people in a gym. one can bench 150 pounds. the other, 250. both are lifting their absolute max, but which is stronger? they're both experiencing as much as they can handle. that's why i cant stand it when people say 'well don't whine because this person, or these people have it so much worse.' the mind can be a prison. the voice of plath is one of the most defined of any writer anywhere. no one can deny that her suicide brought her to the forefront of authors that were read. but her STUFF is incredible. NO QUESTION one of the better female poets of the last 50 years. so many poets have stated her influence on their writing. and about her husband, there is no misinterpretation how she felt over him. married, but...very, very strained relationship. i think he was jealous of her actually. a great poet himself, no doubt. but he couldn't do it like she did. you have to really read some of her old journals and writings. and The Bell Jar was a near biographical account of what really happened to her. of course it isn't one of the most 'well-written' books, whatever that means. it's the power in them. she saw connections in objects that were mind-boggling. in that regard, she was the modern day Dickinson (although, not quite the prodigy admittedly) which reminds me. 2013, the Plath estate is releasing unpublished journals and papers from plath that ted hughes kept under wraps. it'll be 40 years after her death.
as a final note, listen to intensity of her later works. it's madness. but it's not weepy, silly girl madness. she makes the sickest connections, and she's not even trying. internally, she harbored everything she wrote about. i have to admit, i grew up disliking her poetry very much until the last few years, when i purchased her books. and i saw the process. i saw how everything warped. when you fill in all of the autobiographical pieces about her along the way, and knowing when each poem was published, it's startling stuff. Ted Hughes, for the most part has received more praise from literary circles than Plath did, but everyone knows who the better writer was. it's hard to explain why. you just have to go through the process. i'm sure theres academic papers written somewhere detailing all of that. seek them out.
sorry for the ramble. hopefully it was cohesive.
But one begs the question, why do I care about her pain? Why is her hysteria somehow relevant to me, and why does the I in poetry need to even reflect the poet, much less why do we care about it.
As for this everybody knows, who is everybody? in terms of academics, I think the verdict now is that Hughes as an ok poet, and plath a meh poet - the actual acceptance of this confessional poetry as something beyond a few good poets is relatively constrained to certain academic circles of the US (which birthed the movement) with, as I said, Roethke and Lowell and the excellent Bishop who is sometimes thrown in there.
I think JBI is a bit overly harsh on Plath, but he's also mostly right that she isn't really all that great. I think Plath is an alright poet, she knew how to write a poem at least, she wasn't simply a no-talent hack. Is there anything particularly great or interesting about Plath's poetry? I'm not really sure there is much there.
One thing Plath has is that a few of her better poems are highly accessible, and thus are often effective introductions to poetry for young readers. Lady Lazarus, Daddy, and Ariel are fine poems, most of her other stuff doesn't impress me too much. I have to agree with JBI about the holocaust imagery being a bit too much. I'd agree that Roethke is far more interesting as well, one of my favourites.