The Many Confessions of a Poet

             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