Sylvia Plath is indeed a
remarkable poet. In her poem, Lady
Lazarus, Plath completely blows my mind with the raw pain and internal
suffering that she is able to communicate. With her marriage falling apart and
a past of emotional breakdowns haunting her, she is able to let the reader into
her desire to rise above these setbacks in her life. Just like the Phoenix, she
will rise out of her own ashes and be stronger than she was before. But is it
all in vain? She states that this is her third attempt to be reborn, if the
first two did not work, will this time be different?
This
is a perfect example of poetry flowing from life. We are not supposed to read
her life into the poems, but it is hard not to when this poem was written only
months before her suicide. Plath was a brilliant writer, and in this poem, she
uses her brilliance to try and pursued her readers and possibly even herself
that she was going to overcome her struggles. Sadly it was not the case.
Her
use of imagery from Nazi WWII treatment of the Jews gives a great description
of how torn inside she truly was. Some of the images she mentions are painful
to read and makes it hard to grasp how evil man can be. With work as moving as
this, one can only question what could have come if she lived, and what may not
have come if she was not so torn inside.
Frederick Seidel’s
Mount Street Gardens is a confessional
poem as Plath’s, just not near as dark and infused with some humor. This is a
simple poem which talks about how a man has watched his little town grow into a
big city that is more flashy and fancy than he ever wanted it to be. He reminisces
about the old ways that he truly loved and speaks of some of the changes that
have taken place, and now the only enjoyment he gets when visiting is sitting
on a park bench in the garden that is hidden behind all of the growth. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/244422
I'm with you. Sylvia Path was an incredible poet who had a knack for communicating emotion that you may have never experienced. I liked the contrast of the two poems you used. One a little more lighthearted and the other, well, quite the opposite, but both compare and contrast their pasts and futures but neither really get any closure.
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