My
favorite poem of Sylvia Plath is “Mad Girl’s Love Song.” Just
by the title one may assume that it might be a poem about someone expressing their love and devotion to another human being
but upon deeper exploration it is quite the opposite. This is possibly the most intelligent and sophisticated use of an oxymoron
because in this context she uses the word “mad” to refer to someone who is suffering from a disorder of the mind
and it is evident when she says “I think I made you up inside my head” over and over throughout the poem. The
word “love” on the other hand generally refers to a term of endearment or someone having a tender affection for
someone and when we put them together to create “Mad girl’s love song” it creates a whole new ambience and
tone for the poem. Her use of personification is exceptionally creative in which she refers to closing her eyes and the world
dropping dead referring to going to sleep and entering into a fantasy world and the real world no longer exists. It seems as though this poem is about Sylvia’s struggle with trust and faith and is unsure of what
is real and what a fantasy that is created in her skewed frame of mind.
Mad Girls Love Song
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids
and all is born again. (I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, And arbitrary
blackness gallops in: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed And sung me moon-struck,
kissed me quite insane. (I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: Exit seraphim
and Satan's men: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you'd return the way you said, But I grow old and
I forget your name. (I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved
a thunderbird instead; At least when spring comes they roar back again. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. (I
think I made you up inside my head.)"
This is Syrinx and Pan who Sylvia refer to in this poem
I disliked the poem “Virgin in a Tree” and categorized
that as being her worst poem.Sylvia Plath is a very intelligent woman and this
poem lacks an original idea and Sylvias use of dark satire. This poem is based on a tale of Greek mythology and about nymphs
being chased by Greek gods and all Sylvia does is manipulate the words around and combine them into various stanzas to make
them into a poem. At the beginning it talks about the fable but at the end it seems to be more of a life lesson
because the end of the poem takes on a new bitter tone as she begins to talk about how beautiful virgins are and people who
are not married are referred to as 'ugly spinsters.' It seems as though she is also stating that if you wait too long
to get married and pregnant, you will 'overripe' rot and utterly be useless. This is describing Sylvia's life at the time
because she felt inadequate for not being married at a younger age.
Virgin In A Tree
How this tart fable instructs And mocks! Here's the parody of that moral mousetrap Set
in the proverbs stitched on samplers Approving chased girls who get them to a tree And put on bark's nun-black
Habit
which deflects All amorous arrows. For to sheathe the virgin shape In a scabbard of wood baffles pursuers, Whether
goat-thighed or god-haloed. Ever since that first Daphne Switched her incomparable back
For a bay-tree hide, respect's
Twined to her hard limbs like ivy: the puritan lip Cries: 'Celebrate Syrinx whose demurs Won her the frog-colored
skin, pale pith and watery Bed of a reed. Look:
Pine-needle armor protects Pitys from Pan's assault! And though
age drop Their leafy crowns, their fame soars, Eclipsing Eva, Cleo and Helen of Troy: For which of those would
speak
For a fashion that constricts White bodies in a wooden girdle, root to top Unfaced, unformed, the nipple-flowers
Shrouded to suckle darkness? Onlyh they Who keep cool and holy make
A sanctum to attract Green virgins,
consecrating limb and lip To chastity's service: like prophets, like preachers, They descant on the serene and seraphic
beauty Of virgins for virginity's sake.'
Be certain some such pact's Been struck to keep all glory in
the grip Of ugly spinsters and barren sirs As you etch on the inner window of your eye This virgin on her rack:
She, ripe and unplucked, 's Lain splayed too long in the tortuous boughs: overripe Now, dour-faced, her fingers
Stiff as twigs, her body woodenly Askew, she'll ache and wake
Though doomsday bud. Neglect's Given her
lips that lemon-tasting droop: Untongued, all beauty's bright juice sours. Tree-twist will ape this gross anatomyh
Till irony's bough break.
Southern Sunrise
Color of lemon, mango, peach,
These storybook villas
Still dream behind
Shutters, their balconies
Fine as hand-
Made lace, or a leaf-and-flower pen-sketch
Tilting with the winds,
On arrowy stems,
Pineapple-barked
A green crescent of palms
Sends up its forked
Firework of fronds.
A quartz-clear dawn
Inch by bright inch
Gilds all our Avenue,
And out of the blue drench
Of Angels’ Bay
Rises the round red watermelon sun.
My
Favorite Poem: Southern
Sunrise
Sylvia
Plath’s unusual light and airy poem “Southern Sunrise” uses colorful wording
to express the beauty of a peaceful morning sunrise. This is my favorite poem because there is nothing dark and dreary about
it. Sylvia Plath is known for her deep and gloomy outlook on human nature and life in itself. “Southern
Sunrise” is unusual for Plath, but surprisingly wonderful in all of its glory. She takes a simple natural
beauty and makes it more. Her use of imagery and rhythm ties the poem together making a beautiful portrait of one of life’s
most simple pleasures, witnessing nature’s wonders.
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My Least Favorite Poem: Daddy
The tumultuous relationship between Plath and her father is epitomized in one of
her most famous works “Daddy”. I found this to be my least favorite poem of Plath’s because of the sheer
darkness and disturbia imbedded in its core.
“Daddy” is a literary masterpiece. Plath uses rhythm, rhyme, personification,
and imagery to illustrate her less than good relationship with her father. The actual composition of the poem is good; it
is the theme that I find displeasing. The dark side of Sylvia shines through this work leaving me sad and disappointed in
her view of her father and her life. She is very chaotic with her feelings in this poem. She dislikes her father, then she
wants to be dead to be with him, and then she hates him again. Composing “Daddy” may have been her trying to work
through her issues with him; however I don’t feel it was an appropriate way to find her true feelings. Regardless of
any personal anguish her father left her with, he was still her father and his memory deserved more respect than she opted
to show.
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.
Unlike her other work, this poem gave a sense of love and joy and that is why
I chose this piece as one of my favorite poems of Sylvia Plath.I understood
the title, after reading the poem, metaphorically relating to an infant crying in the morning hours.The opening line of the poem combines personification, metaphor
and simile in a single nine-word sentence; and with the opening word being, “Love," the sentence's subject, is a personification.The infant created by the couple and their intercourse is then compared in a simile,
a "fat gold watch."Sylvia is so overjoyed and moved by the innocence of her
child she states, “I'm no more your mother” which I understood as she was placing her child on a holy level,
she isn’t the mother anymore because God is.Towards the end of the poem,
Sylvia is going to nurse her child in the wee morning hours of the day and happy about doing so, “One cry, and I stumble
from bed, cow-heavy and floral.”What I got out of this poem was, even though babies will pain and annoy, their presence is a blessing and very powerful
and the love a mother has for her children is a strong bond.A poem showing Plath’s
affectionate side; one side she doesn’t show often.Proving that even though
written in 1961, during a time of depression and hard times in Sylvia’s life, she always had love for her children.
Cut
For Susan O'Neill Roe What a thrill --- My
thumb instead of an onion. The top quite gone Except for a sort of a hinge
Of skin, A flap
like a hat, Dead white. Then that red plush.
Little pilgrim, The
Indian's axed your scalp. Your turkey wattle Carpet rolls
Straight from the
heart. I step on it, Clutching my bottle Of pink fizz.
A celebration, this
is. Out of a gap A million soldiers run, Redcoats, every one.
Whose side are they
on? O my Homunculus, I am ill. I have taken a pill to kill
The thin Papery
feeling. Saboteur, Kamikaze man ---
The stain on your Gauze
Ku Klux Klan Babushka Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled Pulp
of your heart Confronts its small Mill of silence
How you jump --- Trepanned
veteran, Dirty girl, Thumb stump.
This is my least favorite poem
and I don’t like it at all because it has no traditional poetry techniques and is very free verse.With that being said, it does make the poem seem more real but it clearly shows the dark side of Sylvia
Plath.It develops a tone by describing the motives, feelings, and essence of
self-mutilation.It has a dark, scary theme like many of Plath’s poems
and was clearly written at a time when she was very low.From the beginning this
poems first line is about escapism, “What a thrill” suggests that the self-mutilation is deliberate and conveys
a temporary feeling of excitement or pleasure.By the last line, thumb stump,
refers to the scar left behind from her cut, and how she will never be the same again. She shows that cutting herself is an
ineffective tactic against her enemy, only fueling her depression, leaving her injured and even worse off.All together this poem is not appealing to me.To me this
poem is telling the reader that you can fulfill your emptiness and relieve pain by using methods of disfigurement even though
it won’t fix your problems it will fulfill it for a short time.Sylvia
is setting a theme that isn’t healthy and it shows that she is mentally unstable.