Skip to main content

Reply to "Sylvia Plath"

Imagine this...
A 15 year old student in Mr. Levy's high school creative writing class. The poem read that day- "Tulips," by Sylvia Plath. The student was me. My world was totally rocked by the power of the written word, the relentless cadence, the brutal, hallucinatory imagery, the fact that there was not a single unecessary word...
This early exposure to the work of Ms. Plath changed my perception of what a poet was and could be. It also introduced me to the so-called "Confessional School" of poetry of whom Robert Lowell was a definite master...
Interestingly enough, at this time (1971) there was a similar post-Plath confessional movement afoot in popular music (Joni Mitchell had just released "Blue") as well as prose (Joan Didion's "The White Album.")
And although Plath's tragic decent into madness and suicide is perfect fodder for the teen-age misfit's mind, the lesson learned was definitely that the poet definitely must mix a bit of his or her own blood in that ink...

"Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air."

& don't get me started on Meg Ryan...

I believe there was a film done on "The Bell Jar" a while back that was very trippy. I dimly remember that Julie Harris was in it somewhere, and that Madamoiselle Magazine had a special reunion of the staff that had worked with Plath that fateful summer for its opening.

[This message was edited by hatches on 10-28-03 at 11:15 AM.]
Last edited {1}
×
×
×
×