http://www.salon.com/2004/11/29/plath_therapist/
I know that psychoanalysts are not meant to tell patients what to do.So I was surprised this one did.. like telling her to get a divorce.Now I discover she had not even undergone her own analysis.
Make sure your therapist is trained if you need one
| There has more been written,probably, about Sylvia Plath than any other poet of the last century.Much of it is various attempts at her biography.The focus was on her actual life and its events.I had only read “Daddy” and “lady Lazarus” but lately I read more from her collected works and I am now impressed with her poetic gift and her hard work developing it.Perhaps she worked too hard.Who can say? So I was ready to read some critical evaluation of her writing.This book is excellent if a little short. I found it quite easy to read even though I have no academic training in literature. There is a summary of her life but the main focus is on each phase of her writing For someone of only 30 when she died she underwent remarkable transitions and growth of her poetic mind.I am also now re ading her prose which I had dismissed. I recommend this wholeheartedly.There is another volume “The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath” Here is a poem I like especially the last verse Nick and the Candlestick By Sylvia Plath I am a miner. The light burns blue.
Waxy stalactites
Drip and thicken, tears
The earthen womb
Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat airs
Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld to me like plums.
Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the newts are white,
Those holy Joes.
And the fish, the fish—
Christ! they are panes of ice,
A vice of knives,
A piranha
Religion, drinking
Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,
Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo
Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood blooms clean
In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.
Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses,
With soft rugs—
The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,
Let the mercuric
Atoms that cripple drip
Into the terrible well,
You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.
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http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/article.html?id=663
I love her work
Unfunny uncles who insist
in trying on a lady’s hat,
–oh, even if the joke falls flat,
we share your slight transvestite twist
in spite of our embarrassment.
Costume and custom are complex.
The headgear of the other sex
inspires us to experiment.
Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach
with paper plates upon your laps,
keep putting on the yachtsmen’s caps
with exhibitionistic screech,
the visors hanging o’er the ear
so that the golden anchors drag,
–the tides of fashion never lag.
Such caps may not be worn next year.
Or you who don the paper plate
itself, and put some grapes upon it,
or sport the Indian’s feather bonnet,
–perversities may aggravate
the natural madness of the hatter.
And if the opera hats collapse
and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps,
he thinks what might a miter matter?
Unfunny uncle, you who wore a
hat too big, or one too many,
tell us, can’t you, are there any
stars inside your black fedora?
Aunt exemplary and slim,
with avernal eyes, we wonder
what slow changes they see under
their vast, shady, turned-down brim.
I just read this on “How my heart speaks “by Katherine
https://wordscat.wordpress.com/
Just think it could be WormPress or WarmPress.Here are the books recommended by cool.wormpress.com .Meanwhile snails slowly rush in where slugs may be filled with dread.
Some evenings,the sky turned pink
We were happy,lying in the grass
Watching the sun set.
Arms around each other.
Seemed like eternal life had come
Earlier than forecast.
Those weathermen are always wrong!
They need new training
In that timeless moment
In between two raindrops,
In between two tears.
In the sudden hotness of the day
The bench beside the roses seemed set right.
We talked about the flowers so sweet so gay,
And whether Love is visible to sight,
The flowers seemed more beautiful and rare
Than any flower I’ve let my eyes rest on.
I welcomed them with bold yet merry stare.
Ah,all too soon bright summer will be gone.
The sun was at the apex of the sky.
We caught the moment like a netted fish.
And as we looked the broad white clouds blew by.
All we can do is wish and wish and wish,
Now back to dishes,socks and “what’s for tea?”
I live so well because so you love me
The subject matter of a poem must come from whatever is inside your head.So reading more poetry or any well written literature contributes.The form of the poem may determine what rises to the surface as you write.I got the idea of beginning with a negative from some poetry newsletter I get [Sorry,not kept reference] I was reluctant to write a sonnet.Iambic pentamet sounds frightening.To help me keep in my the right structure I recite
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day
Then I have to start,I think if a first line
“Not love nor money should we seek to steal;”
I like that as there is some alliteration,it’s the right length.and I agree with the sentiment.Once I have a first line then the next lines seem to come more easily.THe whole sonnet is a surprise to me.Did I know I thought like that?Well,in a way, but r so explicitly.I have written about five now.They do resemble poems by the Metaphysicals like Donne.So I am unsure if I have found my own voice.I think the more one write the more likely it is you will find your own voice.Check the meter.Check for cliches.Check for adverbs used to correct the meter
Read poetry in books,on blogs,on the internet.Study some guides like
Teach yourself:writing poetry.
I like
W H Auden ,,Sylvia Plath,SimonArmitage,Donne,Marvell…..,Shakespeare,Rilke,Seamus Heaney,Hopkins,W B Yeats/
but you really need to read some modern poetry,
BY SOME GRACE
Not love nor money should we seek to steal;
Nor for self praise and honor be in need
For these things cannot ever truly heal.
And onto a wrong path may often lead.
Not to vice nor virtue must our wills be tied;
Yet by some grace we gently may be led
Our will directs attention which denied
May let our pride control our thoughtless head.
Not good nor bad can track the vane of God
Far from our sightless eyes are his affairs.
Yet Faith and Hope can be a dowsing rod
With Love the force to trace the Spirit bare.
Oh,come down,Spirit,take me as your wife
Fill me with holy grace and with new life
Which poetry do you remember without trying to learn it?I remember Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll…author of Alice in Wonderland and Island by W H Auden.Also the Lady of Shalott and some of Wordsworth and Shakespeare.I wonder why those?I am glad I did learn some by heart but sometimes my heart has learned them by itself!!
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21722
This is very beautifully written and worth reading if you have time and if you care about language and expression of our subjectivity
Here is a website which says so:
http://www.poeticmedicine.com/
Some people say it is but poets have a much higher suicide rate than any other people/
I read:It is diagnostic but not therapeutic [Sylvia Plath]
I also read that writing to a strict form is more likely to help you then writing free verse…seems intriguing.I believe if you have suffered a lot in life,writing may bring it to the surface.Fiona Sampson in The Expert Guide to Poetry Writing advises one to keep the phone number of the Samaritans to hand!That tells you a lot.I wonder what T.S.Eliot would say or Ted Hughes?What do you think?
Air,bitter they call it,whispers to the sweet planes of my face,
Shrieks shrill to my cavities,ears,mouth and nose;penetrates all that’s open;
Probing like a surgeon’s knife,to see what healing damage it might do.
A frozen finger,touches my heart;
Seems like the ice is inside me sending urgent warnings.
On that high inner mountain,you’ll feel nothing at all…
You’ll be the snowman, a bloody icicle;
An Old Testament of Endurance;
A legend like the pale polar bears,
snuffling uneasily around the summit
Touching a woman’s heart is the quickest way to gain her attention
I’m looking at you;you’re in pieces.
You’re a puzzle,a jigsaw with two double dynamos.
A broken racing bicycle crossed with two ice skates.
Ten motorboats crashed into a yacht and abandoned on a Swiss lake in winter.
Can I leave you scattered like this?
You’re a man in a penguin suit;
Diplomatic, attached with the coldest reserves.
You’re a spy from the court of the Vatican City
A screaming Pope;
An unbaptized demon.
A lost angel with no hands;
A half hung side of meat;
An unbroken rampant horse deluded by winds east.
We were split,one from another;
Split in ourselves too–thoughts and emotions
Are raw like meat,weeping as they are pulled apart into islands.
I see there’s a cold window between us.
I rub it with my damp coat sleeve,like children do,licking on it;
And see your eyes gleam in hope like greenish diamonds.
Yet I can’t touch you,until we learn how to melt glass.
Are you trying too as you smile weakly,
desperately holding onto this impossible slippery glass?
We’ll try reach you at the bottom of whatever frozen ocean you sigh in.
Here you are,a flat and two dimensional Prospero.
You rise like a non-U-boat already firing at the upper orders.
Here you are walking through what seemed like ruins
And you are not just alive, but burning.
A beautiful poem
I have loved you and I’ve held you.
Many years,you have been mine;
If the time has come for parting
Let us embrace for one last time.
You know you have to leave me,
Though you desire a longer stay.
Let me hold you in my arms now
For just tonight and perhaps one day.
Then I’ll watch you travel on,sweet.
We take this last step all alone.
I’ll be here beside you watching.
I shall feel when you are gone.
May you accept, may you surrender
I’m sure you’ll reach the promised land.
Into this earth my tears will fall, love,
As I recall your tender hands
Love must be so pliant ,
like a blade of grass,
Bowing to the wind,
till the storm has passed.
Love is enigmatic
Like the sphinx’s smile.
Waiting for an answer,
Nothing is on file.
Love is often near us
Yet we do not see.
Sometimes where we are
Is just the place to be
Maybe you didn’t know
When you teased me so.
Maybe you never knew
What your words would do.
I float across that space
Where lovers once embraced.
And thus you bring torment
To me whom love you sent.
When we close our eyes
Our daytime face then dies.
We look across dark seas
To sacramental trees.
My dreams are full of loss.
Is night or day the worse?
When I return next here
Will love outstrip your fear?
I gaze upon your face,
Forbidden to embrace.
My arms ache deep inside,
As if in agony tied.
Torn apart by grief.
Love is now a thief.
Where has God’s face gone
As brightly shines the sun?
The pains of life are sharp,
Cutting through the heart.
But still we turn towards love,
With all the strength we have.
Trusting in the dark,
Trusting my own heart.
I step into the void.
Love can’t be denied
didn’t even love,in a place with no telephone,
Was it worth thirty plus years of harrowing
Grief and guilt.Did you need the excitement?
Writing,too demanding.Real love was certainly
A demand but one you’d think would be
A useful mine for poetry.Sylvia’s love
Too much?And what you thought would be
A few seemingly trivial acts,could have
such consequences.
But isn’t that always so ?
I don’t think Pontius Pilate knew
His name would go down in history
As the Judge of God himself,
Washing his hands like an obsessive,thinking
A ritual would heal him of his guilt
“I will say this quite plainly, what truly human is -and don’t be afraid of this word- love. And I mean it even with everything that burdens love or, i could say it better, responsibility is actually love, as Pascal said: ‘without concupiscence’ [without lust]… love exists without worrying about being loved.”
― Emmanuel Lévinas, Of God Who Comes to MindHere is a good article
And another
A good introduction to her work from this prizewinning author and poet
Stan woke up with a sore throat.
He had to write his wife a note.
He could not speak without much pain.
Oh,dear,he’s got a bug again!
Mary made him lemon tea.
He listened to the BBC.
He read the paper front to back;
Did Su doku,called the quack!
This is Dr Browne right here,
but only gurgles could he hear!
He drove straight round to visit Stan,
He felt concern for this old man!
Stan was lying in the hall.
Dr.Browne asked,Did you fall?
No,said Stan,I hate my bed.
I thought I’d lie down here instead.
It may be draughty,never mind.
Dr Browne is very kind.
What about this long settee?
It looks quite like a bed to me.
I hope you are not feeling gay!
Oh,my my!.What did you say?
I mean it seems a trifle odd
I wonder if you love me, Stan?
Stan said,Doctor you’re a man!
I only love the sweeter sex!
Dr Browne looked very vexed.
You are gay.,Oh,zut alors!
Yes,but I am very chaste.
I never go below the waist
So you just hold hands and kiss?
Yes,my man,it’s utter bliss.
But were do you meet your lovers gay?
I find them mainly on E-bay!
I place small adverts in the Times.
I joined a club for tasting wines.
Some I meet by chance alone.
Can’t you settle on just one?
But you are unfaithful to your wife?
You do not lead a saintly life!
Oh,Mary is not keen on sex,
She sits in bed and sends out texts.
Once our Lyra had been born,
She treated me with utter scorn!
He gave Stan‘s arm a little nudge.
Don’t you want a tiny hug?
It really may scare off that bug
So Stan and Dr Browne embraced.
I assure you it was completely chaste.
Stan went off to make hot drinks
While Dr Browne admired his Quinks.
Do you use a fountain pen?
I use my Shaeffer now and then.
I got it when I went to college.
Through that pen has passed much knowledge.
But now my mind has gone quite blank.
I’d like to be completely frank.
Was all my learning utter waste?
Not at all,it kept you chaste.
While you had your head in books,
It kept attention from your looks.
But now you’re empty,Je t’adore.
With that he made for Stan’s front door.
Stan was gobsmacked by this visit.
He called to Emile:Oh,what is it?
Even though I’m 93
All I meet want to love me!
The English are mainly very queer.
Oh,said Emile,Oh,dear,dear!
Cats don’t have much time for hugs
They chase the frogs and sleep on rugs
There are many people who think poetry must rhyme.But in fact the most important thing is meter or musicality
I have found some of my early work is poor but it’s better now.But there is so much awful poetry on the net,I only wish people would read one or two articles about poetry or read
_”Poetry for Dummies” or similar works.
One person has paid £300 to have his book published and though the work is heartfelt it is inn need of much editing.
I know the amazed feeling you can get after writing a poem,but it’s a bit like falling in love.
Think of “A midsummer night’s dream” and ponder…. feelings are not the final guide in love or in creation.I am far from despising the work of the amateur.I am not very critical by nature but sometimes I cannot help being astounded by the dreadfulness
People using both Thee and You in the same poem
Using cliches
Using “poetic language” like ” where ere you go” ‘Twas on a monday morning.It’s out of date.
Poor meter.
Never having read much after Shelley/Wordworth/Keats
Never having read much at all except a newspaper…. a tabloid
Now,if you love to write but your work is not worth publishing. it’s still a really good pastime
and a learning experience.But ask someone wise to read it before you try to publish it.Or write a blog and ask for critiques
Just a brief note before my whooping cough returns.Poetry can be just clever playing with words.. or not so clever!But true poetry stems from living and feeling.I shall hope to illustrate this with some examples.Feeling itself is not enough for poetry.The poet needs to transmute the feeling using her craft into something that contains and retains the feelings and passes the result on to readers.Being able to play with words is useful, but not sufficient.Maybe that has to be impregnated with feeling?
since i lost you i have lost
the keys to my heart
the front door key
my mobile
and my money
now all i have is a large tube of ibuprofen gel max strength
and some feathers from the tail of a baby wood pigeon
that flew into our house when i left the back door open
maybe i need better boundaries
closed doors
and windows
the wood pigeon was so strong its agitation rocked the front door like a thundergod
like you,it did not realise
there are easier ways to leave
than smashing through glass
leaving shards to pierce my heart
not to mention my feet
become a better leaver
have mercy on those other lovers
for charm wears thin but courtesy is everlasting
like love itself
Looking out,I see the snow,yet I don’t feel it.
How tempting to build a wall of glass around oneself for safety
Yet touch is as important as sight.
Defenses are too strong if they remove us from experience
Better to weep than to freeze
Weeping brings comfort and flow
Frozen behind glass we are a mere specimen in a museum.
Gerard Manley Hopkins – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
I thought someone might like to read this,There us some explanation about his use of rhyme and rhythm.I find his poems very rich
Father Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “The Habit of Perfection” | Suite101.
If you would like to see an analysis of the poem that begins
Elected silence sing to me
then this link will take you to a good site
I heard these words some years ago and did not know who wrote them.Henry Vaughn was a 17th Century metaphysical poet and mystic.The quotation seems to imply a paradox as darkness is not dazzling..but I think that’s because we cannot capture God in discursive language as if He were an object in our world
There is in God (some say) a deep but dazzling darkness.”
― Henry Vaughan
I am cleaning the wind’s eyes tomorrow and my eyes.You have to clean windows in Spring time because the sunshine shows up the dirt.Reading about the origin of the word “window” made me think how all language was originally metaphor and that poetry and song preceded speech in the way we know it now
What I find the most fascinating is that language evolved,not in universities but in the lives of ordinary people and their needs from economic,to artistic to religious.I think now our language can seem dead which points to the importance of poetry.We don/t want the only new words to be those made up by advertisers or by newspeak in technology..Babies learn to speak one or even two or three languages….Strange how many children here leave school functionally illiterate…the learning process goes wrongWe should place a higher value on ourselves and our natural abilities and not worship the experts.Our senses are our windows and inside we have our mind which even has its own eye..and though that eye we see God
“The eye with which we see God, is the eye with which God sees us”
from Meister Eckhart.[Sermons]
in the warm ocean
we frolic in
the sea of love,
our bodies turning
and turning
around an invisible centre.
skin touches skin
gently like rose petals touch.
how do we speak
except by gestures
of the heart?
how do we know
except by loving touch?
The sea,infinite sea.
trusting the depths
giving ourselves away
with hands reaching
to touch again and again
Our medium is fluid,
no boundaries ,no edges,
washed here and there,
we paint our love
into being
our fingers the brush,
our skin the canvas.
such impressions we make.
such laughter creating
How my heart speaks 