Plathville

[twelveoone]

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?

 

[Maria2394]

dear 1201

she were such the tragic figger, y'know. I dont like her, perhaps I havent grown to appreciate her...yet, nor do I ever expect to. I like your work, yours is not tragic, not cartoonish

 

[twelveoone]

dear 1201

she were such the tragic figger, y'know. I dont like her, perhaps I havent grown to appreciate her...yet, nor do I ever expect to. I like your work, yours is not tragic, not cartoonish

Aye, this a shame, ye never read me AV#1, (I forget thee title) manly in it's mindlessness, and probably the greatest cartoon disguised as poetry, ever.

I really am missing on Plath though...

 

[Maria2394]

1201-
I do remember one you wrote, that seemed absurd, and then you wrote a "serious" one and told me it ws the same poem, I didnt understand that..but your work intrigues me. You are the first and only one that ever really got my burnt norton refs and understood them and then I found them in yours!! lol..damnit, man, i missed you!!!

ps, normal jean wrote a silly one on the passion thread last week, it was sort of reminiscent of yours, and she was thinking of you when she wrote it. maria was supposed to write a serious one to explain it but never found the time...

 

[bogusbrig]

To me she inhabits an egocentric world of a depressive, which appears to me to be too often mistaken for a metaphor of the human condition but it is merely her condition. Manufactured depth, an intellectual illusion, a 'me' tantrum dressed up as 'this is our shared existence'. It ain't!

Cartoons are good, like a jester, they expose the nonsense in how seriously we take ourselves and because of that, probably give us more insight into the human condition.

I write puke and make no apologies for it. People can find in it what they will.

 

[twelveoone]

To me she inhabits an egocentric world of a depressive, which appears to me to be too often mistaken for a metaphor of the human condition but it is merely her condition. Manufactured depth, an intellectual illusion, a 'me' tantrum dressed up as 'this is our shared existence'. It ain't!

Cartoons are good, like a jester, they expose the nonsense in how seriously we take ourselves and because of that, probably give us more insight into the human condition.

I write puke and make no apologies for it. People can find in it what they will.

Damn, boy, it that what you call it? I got the feeling you wrote blood, with bits of teeth in it.

Title of thread is Plathville
Score 3 agin, 0 fer - bottom of the first

Plath, what am I missing?

 

[PatCarrington]

Plath, what am I missing?

for what it's worth, here is what i see in her, what i have always seen in her.

....i heard someone say once, a priest i think when he was trying to reconvert me to Christ, that the moment comes to all of us when we are truly alone - the moment of death - when there is and cannot be anyone there but one person, yourself....and deep down we all know that, but refuse to deal with it fully until the time comes, refuse to walk to that line and be truly alone....we postpone the inevitable with whatever feels good.

and when i read Sylvia i have always said to myself, this is a person who was born on that line...a person who waits there, for years and years, to know it, truly know it, until she can't take it anymore.

so i think, in her poetry, she confronts that moment we will all face - but she embraces it as what she is, what we all are - she spits in its face knowing she can't win, and she bitches and screams her way toward that inevitable day when she tears her clothes and skin off and says, "I'm ready now, you no-good fuck...take me."

 

[jthserra]

Read "The Bell Jar"

Basically autobiographical, will give you some insight into this woman. She survived a suicide attempt while in her late teens, which she recreated in "The Bell Jar". At least when she did finally succeed at killing herself, she went alone, unlike Ted Hughes' lover Asyssa, who killed herself and her daughter (by Hughes).

Sylvia's daughter Frieda Hughes has some intriguing poetry in her book Woorloo. She also has published Waxworks, another book of poetry.

The thing that really fueled my enthusiasm for Plath's poetry was hearing her read her own poems. Listening to a Cademon recording of her poetry I was enthralled at the incredible use of sound in her poems.

I guess you can count me as a Plath fan...

jim : )

 

[bogusbrig]

so i think, in her poetry, she confronts that moment we will all face - but she embraces it as what she is, what we all are - she spits in its face knowing she can't win, and she bitches and screams her way toward that inevitable day when she tears her clothes and skin off and says, "I'm ready now, you no-good fuck...take me."

If Plath is an illustration of the human condition we would still be living in caves and throwing ourselves off of cliffs. The fact is that despite the knowledge of our own demise, humans rise to greater things, if only for our children's sake.

Suicide is the most selfish of acts, especially for a parent.

To me her poetry is an illustration of wallowing in self pity.

 

[PatCarrington]

If Plath is an illustration of the human condition we would still be living in caves and throwing ourselves off of cliffs. The fact is that despite the knowledge of our own demise, humans rise to greater things, if only for our children's sake.

Suicide is the most selfish of acts, especially for a parent.

To me her poetry is an illustration of wallowing in self pity.

we are still living in caves and throwing ourselves off cliffs – the caves are just a bit more comfortable now, and we’ve excavated our canyons deeper so the fall takes a little longer.

there is no activity that is more a part of the human condition than death. it is the only one we all must all participate in whether we wish to or not. that makes it the ultimate piece of what we are.

of course suicide’s selfish. selfishness is also part of what we are. some people do not hear the evil connotations in the word selfishness that you seem to.

and some people do not have the strength (and i do not necessarily use that word in the laudatory sense that you probably would) to rise to those greater things you speak of, or simply don’t wish to because they see no reason to.

some people have their bad place thrust on them, and they choose to explore that place rather than try to do something about, maybe because they don’t see the effort worth it when they are going to wind up in the same place in the end anyway. or perhaps their legs are just not strong enough for bigger hills, or perhaps they see those things as so transitory that they are pointless.

i also admire Hemingway, whose philosophy of the undefeatability of a man who continues to get up when he falls would seem to appeal to you.

he committed suicide too.

i am the parent of 5, and a good one. they are the main reason i would never consider suicide….but that doesn’t mean i agree with your points.

i don’t.

and what you see as wallowing in self-pity, i see as personal introspection by a woman whose staggering talent made it possible for her to paint a universality onto it that talks to everyone who wants to listen.

 

[Guest]

she were such the tragic figger, y'know. I dont like her, perhaps I havent grown to appreciate her...yet, nor do I ever expect to.

Ditto that

 

[bogusbrig]

and what you see as wallowing in self-pity, i see as personal introspection by a woman whose staggering talent made it possible for her to paint a universality onto it that talks to everyone who wants to listen.

We can discuss the laudability or impoverishment of someone's actions all day and we may never have a meeting of minds due to differing philosophies and life experience but getting back to the subject of her poetry. I read it, I try to see it but don't. It just doesn't do to me what it does to you and I don't think it is because I don't want to listen, I just think, no matter how good it may be, it doesn't have the universality you claim it to have.

 

[flyguy69]

Damn, boy, it that what you call it? I got the feeling you wrote blood, with bits of teeth in it.

Title of thread is Plathville
Score 3 agin, 0 fer - bottom of the first

Plath, what am I missing?

Pardon me for laughing, but do you really attach any significance to your poll, 12? How many Pulitzer prizes has your poetry won?

I don't mean to suggest that the winning of prizes is a guarantee of quality, nor even to suggest that Sylvia's talent is not debatable, but if you really mean to tabulate votes you've lost this argument before it's begun!

Sylvia (like we're on a first name basis!) wrote some wonderfully complex poetry that often dwelt upon the sadness she experienced. Can anyone fault her for that? Isn't the best of poetry written by folks with personal experience with their subjects? There can be no doubt about the authenticity: her suicide confirms the depth to which she felt her angst. Whether or not it was a selfish act doesn't diminish that.

The universality of her poetry could, I suppose, be reduced to voting. If that means anything. But language like:

Who is he, this blue, furious boy,
Shiny and strange, as if he had hurtled from a star?
He is looking so angrily!
He flew into the room, a shriek at his heel.
The blue color pales. He is human after all.
A red lotus opens in its bowl of blood;
They are stitching me up with silk, as if I were a material.
What did my fingers do before they held him?
What did my heart do, with its love?
I have never seen a thing so clear.
His lids are like the lilac-flower
And soft as a moth, his breath.
I shall not let go.
There is no guile or warp in him. May he keep so.

(excerpted from Three Women

convey an understand of childbirth that biology will never afford me!

 

[flyguy69]

To me she inhabits an egocentric world of a depressive, which appears to me to be too often mistaken for a metaphor of the human condition but it is merely her condition. Manufactured depth, an intellectual illusion, a 'me' tantrum dressed up as 'this is our shared existence'. It ain't!

Cartoons are good, like a jester, they expose the nonsense in how seriously we take ourselves and because of that, probably give us more insight into the human condition.

I write puke and make no apologies for it. People can find in it what they will.

What is the goal of such self-deprecation? Because you write puke (you do not!), your opinions are untainted?

We all, jester and scholar alike, read poetry through the filters of our personal experience and ethos.

 

[flyguy69]

dear 1201

she were such the tragic figger, y'know. I dont like her, perhaps I havent grown to appreciate her...yet, nor do I ever expect to. I like your work, yours is not tragic, not cartoonish

Ah, Maria and Neo, prepare to be grow to appreciate her!

Are you ready? OK, here goes:

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

Not a happy poem. Not a celebration of motherhood. But a frank and somewhat disturbing examination of maternal estrangement. And such imagery!

 

[Guest]

I suppose it's the way of the world and it always will be but arguing about personal tastes is like trying to hold water in a sieve.

Poetry doesn't have to pleasant to read - enjoyable even - but in order to have an appreciation I believe one should, at least, visit it.

So 1201, Maria and Neo don't like Plath's work - so what?

I don't like tripe but I tried it. Now I eat something else.

 

[flyguy69]

I suppose it's the way of the world and it always will be but arguing about personal tastes is like trying to hold water in a seive.

Poetry doesn't have to pleasant to read - enjoyable even - but in order to have an appreciation I believe one should, at least, visit it.

So 1201, Maria and Neo don't like Plath's work - so what?

I don't like tripe but I tried it. Now I eat something else.

Have you tried it with butter? A friend of mine once said "Fry them in butter and even horse turds will taste good."

I never asked how he knew.

 

[bogusbrig]

Poetry doesn't have to pleasant to read - enjoyable even - but in order to have an appreciation I believe one should, at least, visit it.

I don't think the argument is about Plath being enjoyable or not or even if she is good or not but the fact she is on a pedestal and whether that pedestal should be so high.

I came to her 30 years ago and I wanted to like her stuff if only to please the girlfriend that introduced her to me (her poetry that is). I so so wanted to see something in it but couldn't, I didn't see what the fuss about her was then and though I've revisited her time and again, I'm still at a loss as to why she has the reputation she has got.

 

[Guest]

I'm still at a loss as to why he/she/it has the reputation she has got.

I could say that about......

Bob Dylan

Elvis Presley

Shakespeare

hip hop

poetry slams

musique concrete

dark chocolate

McDonald's Bigg Mac

On and on and on....

Somebody loves them.


It's all still a matter of taste - don't sweat it.

 

[flyguy69]

I could say that about......

Bob Dylan

Elvis Presley

Shakespeare

hip hop

poetry slams

musique concrete

dark chocolate

McDonald's Bigg Mac

On and on and on....

Somebody loves them.


It's all still a matter of taste - don't sweat it.

All of those are better in butter.

 

[Guest]

All of those are better in butter.

You just want butter on everything.

 

[flyguy69]

You just want butter on everything.

Me and Marlon Brando.

 

[twelveoone]

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.

 

[twelveoone]

Me and Marlon Brando.

and Elvis

 

[bogusbrig]

I could say that about......

Bob Dylan

Elvis Presley

Shakespeare

hip hop

poetry slams

musique concrete

dark chocolate

McDonald's Bigg Mac

On and on and on....

Somebody loves them.


It's all still a matter of taste - don't sweat it.

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.