Plathville

[twelveoone]

I think its 4 to 3, fly, don't know how tess weighed in.
Maybe I should have set up a poll?

 

[twelveoone]

I would have added Picasso to the list at one time for the most part, then I realised he was using the pedestal people had placed him on to piss on them. I started to like him more after that.

I think Dylan plays the same sort of games at times.

Bogus, I'm trying to find out about Plath, and you're bringing in Picasso pissing
fly's bringing in Brando eating butter

I really am trying to find out.

 

[Guest]

I was just wondering what people saw, if I picked up the wrong thing to place a judgement on. Maybe, I did, "Daddy" I still can not get a handle on. If this was a writer only women can understand. I mean nothing sexist about it, but everyone processes information differently.
Pat's comment stunned me, I thank him for further elaboration. Thank you jthserra.
Thank you flyguy69 for the poem and the reason - I cannot relate to it, not having birthed much, not even Pulitzers but this is a sincere attempt at understanding, at something I may be missing.

Tris?

I was looking at Ariel(sp?), I bought Beowulf instead, don't know what that means, and I lost score.

I'm here.

I agree with jt - to understand "Daddy" and some of her other works you should read The Bell Jar. She had a stormy - to say the least - relationship with her father.

I admire her for persevering through depression as long as she did. Some of us are stronger than others.

I'm sorry - I don't understand you're last paragraph.

 

[Guest]

I think its 4 to 3, fly, don't know how tess weighed in.
Maybe I should have set up a poll?

147lbs.

 

[twelveoone]

147lbs.

of goodness, thank you.
I'm not much of a poetry should be pretty type, "Daddy" horrified me, not really sure why.

 

[bogusbrig]

I'm retiring from this thread due to terminal Plath blindness. I read the Bell Jar years ago and I think I would have prefered to have read the telephone directory.

 

[Angeline]

I would have added Picasso to the list at one time for the most part, then I realised he was using the pedestal people had placed him on to piss on them. I started to like him more after that.

I think Dylan plays the same sort of games at times.

I agree with you on this, and I respect your choice to not be um positively affected by Plath's poetry. I personally have tried but despise Hemmingway (too spare and mysogynistic for my tastes) as well as most of what Melville wrote--bores the hell outta me. I do love Bartleby the Scrivener though, which I find tragically funny or humorously tragic or some such...you get the idea.

Mainly I agree with Tess. It's taste. We're individuals and our unique experience leads us to like what we like. Why should it matter?

Anyway, not liking Sylvia because you find her overweening or weak or whatever makes sense to me (though I don't see her writing that way), but to not like her cause a bunch of academic boobs have made her an icon (the theme of my poem, btw) seems, to me, kinda pointless.

And just for the record, sentimental Yeats/Plath-loving soul that I am, I should tell you that one of my favorite writers is Kurt Vonnegut, who I find, in turns, terrfying in his bleak satirical vision and hysterically funny. You probably hate him, too, though.

 

[bogusbrig]

Anyway, not liking Sylvia because you find her overweening or weak or whatever makes sense to me (though I don't see her writing that way), but to not like her cause a bunch of academic boobs have made her an icon (the theme of my poem, btw) seems, to me, kinda pointless.

The canonization of a writer/artist/musician can influence the direction an artform takes so I reckon anyone who is interested in an artform would also be interested in who is canonized or not. I don't believe in canonization myself but to deny it happens is to deny the truth.

Now I am definitely retiring from this thread now.

Unless provoked that is.

 

[Angeline]

The canonization of a writer/artist/musician can influence the direction an artform takes so I reckon anyone who is interested in an artform would also be interested in who is canonized or not. I don't believe in canonization myself but to deny it happens is to deny the truth.

Now I am definitely retiring from this thread now.

Unless provoked that is.

Not to provoke you, but so you're suggesting that her status as iconic hormonally out-of-control suicidal housewife/poet established a school of modern poetry by women who hence felt free to smear their teary poems over a few generations?

You're probably right. Some of it's pretty good, too.

 

[jthserra]

Listen...

but this is a sincere attempt at understanding, at something I may be missing.

Tris?

I was looking at Ariel(sp?), I bought Beowulf instead, don't know what that means, and I lost score.

Twelveoone... get your hands on a recording of her reading. She is not overly animated and at times seems uncomfortable in the reading, but ignore that, listen to how she uses the words in the poetry, listen to the sound and the rhythm it generates. I used to look at her as an interesting oddity until I heard her read her poetry... it changed my outlook completely.

Ariel is well worth the money... I think her best book.


jim : )

 

[twelveoone]

I agree with you on this, and I respect your choice to not be um positively affected by Plath's poetry. I personally have tried but despise Hemmingway (too spare and mysogynistic for my tastes) as well as most of what Melville wrote--bores the hell outta me. I do love Bartleby the Scrivener though, which I find tragically funny or humorously tragic or some such...you get the idea.

Mainly I agree with Tess. It's taste. We're individuals and our unique experience leads us to like what we like. Why should it matter?

Anyway, not liking Sylvia because you find her overweening or weak or whatever makes sense to me (though I don't see her writing that way), but to not like her cause a bunch of academic boobs have made her an icon (the theme of my poem, btw) seems, to me, kinda pointless.

And just for the record, sentimental Yeats/Plath-loving soul that I am, I should tell you that one of my favorite writers is Kurt Vonnegut, who I find, in turns, terrfying in his bleak satirical vision and hysterically funny. You probably hate him, too, though.

Aha! Vonnegut! Thank you! It mattered to me...Vonnegut may be a better study, for what I want to do.
Did you find "Daddy" a bit excessive?

BTW, a late thought - your double use of "frame" in "Room With a View" did a curious psychological thing, took me awhile to realize what it was.

 

[twelveoone]

Twelveoone... get your hands on a recording of her reading. She is not overly animated and at times seems uncomfortable in the reading, but ignore that, listen to how she uses the words in the poetry, listen to the sound and the rhythm it generates. I used to look at her as an interesting oddity until I heard her read her poetry... it changed my outlook completely.

Ariel is well worth the money... I think her best book.


jim : )

on your recommendation...I will try to get a recording. I will get "Ariel: The Restored Edition"
Thanks - Jim, I think I needed to hear what you just said.

 

[twelveoone]

The canonization of a writer/artist/musician can influence the direction an artform takes so I reckon anyone who is interested in an artform would also be interested in who is canonized or not. I don't believe in canonization myself but to deny it happens is to deny the truth.

Now I am definitely retiring from this thread now.

Unless provoked that is.

I don't like canonzation, myself, unless Tennyson does it.

 

[bogusbrig]

I don't like canonzation, myself, unless Tennyson does it.

Aah yes! Who wouldn't wouldn't give their eye teeth to be canonized by a maestro!

To be canonized for your sex and because one is a suitable banner for a cause is another thing.

I'm reading Plath again at the moment. Just don't see what her acolytes see, I just don't see it.

 

[BooMerengue]

Hey, 1201~ You'll have to count my vote as 1/2 and 1/2. Not cuz I'm a wuss, but she belongs on Ange's pedestal- but not on mine.

and I know that this is off topic but I don't care- suicide is not always a selfish act. Self centered maybe, even stupid, and sometimes righteous, but rarely selfish. True suicides* seldom feel they have any worth to offer to anyone, so they feel they are doing a favor.

*as opposed to drug soaked attention hogs

 

[Maria2394]

1201-
ya know what this reminds me of? in music, those people or groups who had "one hit wonders".... then for years people pore over their other junk looking for a hidden gem...to each his own, but just because someone wins an award, ( which by the way) is just someone elses opinion, or a group opinion, not a mandate of all personal opinion and by no means a reason to laud someone. I think folks felt sorry for her and she wallowed in it. Sorry, I read an artticle about her in Smithsonian and have read some of her work, fly, you wont get me with no birthin' poems.

 

[Man Ray]

If...

...my addition to this thread is to admit that I once bought a book of Plath's poetry just to impress a girl, to prove that I was `sensitive`and not a `reactionary fascist` (Her words, not mine! I was in the army at the time ), and that it worked in that I bedded her. Would I be high-fived or castigated by the `sensitive` poets amongst you for such a mis-use of poetry?

ps I did read the book to her in bed if thats any consolation?

 

[BooMerengue]

...my addition to this thread is to admit that I once bought a book of Plath's poetry just to impress a girl, to prove that I was `sensitive`and not a `reactionary fascist` (Her words, not mine! I was in the army at the time ), and that it worked in that I bedded her. Would I be high-fived or castigated by the `sensitive` poets amongst you for such a mis-use of poetry?

ps I did read the book to her in bed if thats any consolation?

laughin really hard! Readin Plath to her in bed is pay back for all your wrong doin for the past 3 lives!!!

 

[Angeline]

Magnolia Shoals
Sylvia Plath

Up here among the gull cries
we stroll through a maze of pale
red-mottled relics, shells, claws

as if it were summer still.
That season has turned its back.
Through the green sea gardens stall,

bow, and recover their look
of the imperishable
gardens in an antique book

or tapestries on a wall,
leaves behind us warp and lapse.
The late month withers, as well.

Below us a white gull keeps
the weed-slicked shelf for his own,
hustles other gulls off. Crabs

rove over his field of stone;
mussels cluster blue as grapes:
his beak brings the harvest in.

The watercolorist grips
his brush in the stringent air.
The horizon's bare of ships,

the beach and the rocks are bare.
He paints a blizzard of gulls,
wings drumming in the winter.

 

[bogusbrig]

I'm reading it Angeline but I'm just not seeing anything that justifies her reputation. n.b. I'm not saying she isn't good, even though she is not to my taste, she just isn't THAT good. Actually, I spent several hours last night reading her and trying to see what I'm missing but I can't and each example of her work someone posts, I become ever more perplexed at what people see in it that justifies her reputation.

Sorry.

 

[Angeline]

I'm reading it Angeline but I'm just not seeing anything that justifies her reputation. n.b. I'm not saying she isn't good, even though she is not to my taste, she just isn't THAT good. Actually, I spent several hours last night reading her and trying to see what I'm missing but I can't and each example of her work someone posts, I become ever more perplexed at what people see in it that justifies her reputation.

Sorry.

Don't apologize. I'll forever not get Hemmingway and I've tried many times to read him and understand the appeal. It ain't happening for me.

I just posted that poem to try to show that her writing is not always about flagellating herself over her angst.

I don't like her in terms of reputation--I could give a fig about anyone's rep, including my own, but much of her poetry resonates (a word I generally despise in this context, but it's true here) with me. I love poems that offer strong sensory imagery and I love the way she balances that with intellectual insight. I agree with what Patrick said about her ability to convey a universal voice about the human condition--not necessarily a depressed, suicidal one, but one that is visionary about nature and human nature.

But that's my taste in poetry.

 

[Angeline]

Daddy

What am I missing? This is a sincere question.
What I walk away with, is this woman writes stranger than I do. Mine are cartoons. This looks like a cartoon, but pathological. I give her this, she doesn't write "precious".

Am I reading the wrong Plath?

It's a painful poem for me to read, and I don't particularly like it. That's because of my own family's history, what I bring to it, but I also think any poem that can evoke a strong emotional response in a reader is doing something right.

Still, not one of my favorites of hers though it is one that is very famous and gets a lot of attention.

 

[twelveoone]

It's a painful poem for me to read, and I don't particularly like it. That's because of my own family's history, what I bring to it, but I also think any poem that can evoke a strong emotional response in a reader is doing something right.

Still, not one of my favorites of hers though it is one that is very famous and gets a lot of attention.

Thank you, it evoked disgust in me, comparing some personal difficulty to the Holocaust struck me as way over the top. Excessive, self-absorbed.

BTW Fly here is the list
Notice anything funny about it?
Pardon me for laughing back.

 

[Angeline]

Thank you, it evoked disgust in me, comparing some personal difficulty to the Holocaust struck me as way over the top. Excessive, self-absorbed.

BTW Fly here is the list
Notice anything funny about it?
Pardon me for laughing back.

1986: The Flying Change by Henry Taylor ?

He seems awfully consistent to me...

 

[twelveoone]

1986: The Flying Change by Henry Taylor ?

He seems awfully consistent to me...

God, you're good - heh, heh



"Like the well-schooled horse changing leads in mid-air, Henry Taylor makes us perceive the grace of that moment of suspension. For him it is a moment of acute recognition of our mortality, our connection to the past, our need to love. His voice is meditative, his control of form absolute."

—Maxine Kumin


Two Husbands

1

She says she’ll leave him if he screws around;

why not attempt it, if that’s all it takes?

He fears forgiveness; through her, he has found

uprightness in his dreams of dodged mistakes.

2

The youthful urge to kill has left him dry,

that filled their first years with ecstatic woe;

he is content to wait, and watch things die:

as life goes on, he learns to let it go.

—from The Flying Change

Hi ho, and ho hum