Sylvia Plath…
by Grey…
She will always be known as a mad woman. One possessed by many evils of this world and the world hereafter. Yet she claimed such power in her ability to describe and elaborate on all she saw the short time she was with us. I may be the only one who marvels at her use of idiocy in her writing. Perhaps I just like things dumbed down a little. I find that element of her writing to be charming and catering to many people who may not be well versed in literary practices such as metaphors and conjunctions. I could understand what she was trying to say without being some college kid majoring in literary science.
Sylvia is one of my favorite poets. Her poetry to me is often referenced but never really appreciated as much as I believe it should be. Her poems express the feelings of a woman watching life being created, destroyed, and altered, which I and many believe to be partly based on the way her life turned out, marrying a fellow colleague who was constantly recognized for work far less superior than hers (in my opinion). He was poison to her environment and to her mind, and her mind is what ultimately took her life away. Now it has been said that madness and creativity are one in the same. I believe that one does cater the other nicely at times but madness is not something to romanticize. Sylvia suffered from Bipolar Disorder and lead a life which entailed so much heartache that many people who aren’t suffering a mental illness wouldn’t understand. I, as a bipolar person, find her to be a brilliant example of survival and of defeat. When your mind is your Achilles heel sometimes you’re just not stable enough to wear it anymore.
“I?
I walk alone;
The midnight street
Spins itself from under my feet;
My eyes shut
These dreaming houses all snuff out;
Through a whim of mine
Over gables the moon’s celestial onion
Hangs high.
I
Make houses shrink
And trees diminish
By going far; my look’s leash
Dangles the puppet-people
Who, unaware how they dwindle,
Laugh, kiss, get drunk,
Nor guess that if I choose to blink
They die.
I
When in good humour,
Give grass its green
Blazon sky blue, and endow the sun
With gold;
Yet, in my wintriest moods, I hold
Absolute power
To boycott color and forbid any flower
To be.
I
Know you appear
Vivid at my side,
Denying you sprang out of my head,
Claiming you feel
Love fiery enough to prove flesh real,
Though it’s quite clear
All your beauty, all your wit, is a gift, my dear,
From me.
“Soliloquy of the Solipsist”, 1956”
― Sylvia Plath, The Collected Poems
I wish I knew her. I wish I was there when she saw the sounds and tasted the colors. In my eyes there will never be another like her. To my surprise she seemingly had a lot of the same traits that I see many girls my age have. We start something and move on following our instincts letting our senses carry us onto beautiful avenues and events. Many shrugged at Sylvia, some may have even laughed, but she was padded and strong. She never waited for someone to tell her she could; she did, then she kept doing. She truly loved writing and did it even when no one seemed to care she had some thoughts to spare. What brilliant thoughts they missed out on and what brilliant thoughts we now have to inspire us.
Dare she had lived and given herself more time. Dare she had fought every demon and won. Dare she have rested later on in life. I too wish she saved herself and honestly, I’m not sure if she knew how. From her poems I gather that she saw the world in its worst parts, babies being born and some being torn away from life. I don’t think that she could shake the world she’d seen and the life she’d experienced, so sensitive to the nature of all mankind yet asked to sit by and watch it do onto itself what it does can break a person’s heart. Sylvia came in with a broken heart and when she left it was shattered into a billion pieces. But I do believe in reincarnation, so maybe she’ll come back or maybe she’s already here, eager to start again with a heart that is full with no splits in the middle of it.
