false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174415175m/395090.jpg 395090 21 Sylvia Plath churned out her final poems at the remarkable rate of two or three a day, and Robert Lowell describes them as written by "hardly a person at all ... but one of those super-real, hypnotic, great classical heroines." Even more remarkable, she wrote them during one of the coldest, snowiest winters (1962-63) Londoners have ever known. Snowbound, without central heating, she and her two children spent much of their time sniffling, coughing, or running temperatures (In "Fever 103°" she writes, "I have been flickering, off, on, off on. / The sheets grow heavy as a lecher's kiss."). Pipes froze, lights failed, and candles were unobtainable. <p> As if these physical privations weren't enough, Plath was out in the cold in another sense--her husband, Ted Hughes, had left her for another woman earlier that year. Despite all this (or perhaps <I>because</I> of it), the <I>Ariel</I> poems dazzle with their lyricism, their surprising and vivid imagery, and their wit. Rather than confining herself to her bleak surroundings, Plath draws from a wide array of experience. In "Berck-Plage," for instance, clouds are "electrifyingly-coloured sherbets, scooped from the freeze." In "The Night Dances," the poet stands crib-side, reveling in her son's own brand of do-si-do: "Such pure leaps and spirals--Surely they travel / The world forever, I shall not entirely / Sit emptied of beauties, the gift / Of your small breath..." <p> Though at times they present the reader with hopelessness laid bare, these poems also teem with the brightest shards of a life, confounding those who merely look for the words of a gloomy, dispassionate suicide. Plath rose each morning in the final months of her life to "that still blue, almost eternal hour before the baby's cry" and left us these words like "axes/After whose stroke the wood rings..." 1185316 1961 Ariel total:3844|5:1856|4:1306|3:568|2:98|1:16| 3844 16420 5028 221 5 12 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1977 Fri Nov 28 14:51:07 -0800 2008 Thu Sep 17 07:40:13 -0700 2009 10 more...]]> 5 2 false false Sat Jul 14 07:55:29 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 14 07:55:29 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 2 false false Mon Mar 23 07:49:08 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 08:19:14 -0700 2009
I am the type seemingly predestined for Plath worship. Oh, it's easy: white, female, feminist, literary, dark-sided. And I've been disavowing my girl Sylvia for a while now, leery of guilt by asso...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 09 13:30:15 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 17 11:12:48 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Apr 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Feb 25 20:07:34 -0800 2009 Wed Apr 15 11:00:09 -0700 2009 2 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 08 12:00:52 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 08 12:06:25 -0700 2007 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Apr 01 18:17:12 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 01 18:17:12 -0700 2009
However, like many works of poetry, there is no wa...more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 01 11:45:20 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 01 11:54:49 -0700 2009 To be honest, I was a little nervous when I first grabbed the book from the library. This was Plath’s last book and last poetry in her life, and many of the poems I had grown up with. I wanted to read this book very carefully. I wanted to make sure that nostalgia wouldnâ€...more...]]> 5 10 false false Thu Jun 04 06:09:31 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 04 06:09:42 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Jul 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 13:40:54 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 13:14:08 -0700 2009
THE MOON AND THE YEW TREE

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God,
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humi...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Oct 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 04 14:25:37 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 25 14:33:58 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Apr 19 09:31:51 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 19 09:47:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Tue Mar 03 05:57:53 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 03 06:06:59 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Tue Apr 14 02:24:27 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 14 02:25:31 -0700 2009
What did I think of it? Diamond-hard, ...more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Jan 14 01:48:18 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 15 11:32:35 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Sat Jul 19 14:45:44 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 19 14:47:26 -0700 2008
The Thin People

They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the gray people

On a movie-screen. They
Are unreal, we say:

It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil head...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sun Apr 15 10:34:05 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 12 17:05:33 -0700 2007
That’s...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jan 10 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 05 10:29:59 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 11 12:00:25 -0800 2009 I read this three times in three nights. Each time was like willingly swallowing a handful of razorblades and letting them eviscerate me from the i...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Sat Jul 21 10:17:32 -0700 2007 Sat Jan 05 15:12:44 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jan 09 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Dec 18 09:19:15 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 09 09:14:52 -0800 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=395090