The Beautiful Genius Of Sylvia Plath. (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963)

[jones jones]

“If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two—

The vampire who said he was you

And drank my blood for a year,

Seven years, if you want to know.

Daddy, you can lie back now.

There’s a stake in your fat black heart

And the villagers never liked you.

They are dancing and stamping on you.

They always knew it was you.

Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through. ”



Excerpt from her poem “Daddy”.

Sylvia Plath’s first poem was published when she was only eight years old Born into a middle class family in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, she was sensitive & intelligent. On the surface Sylvia seemed perfect, getting straight A’s at college, but in reality she had been deeply affected by the death of her father. Otto Plath died on the night of November 5, 1940, and when the eight-year-old Sylvia was informed of her father's death, she proclaimed "I'll never speak to God again."

During the summer following her junior year at Smith, having returned from a stay in New York City, she tried to commit suicide by swallowing sleeping pills. After a period of electroshock and psychotherapy, she graduated from Smith summa cum laude in 1955, winning a Fulbright scholarship at CambridgeEngland.

In 1956 she married an English poet Ted Hughes but less than two years after the birth of their first child, the marriage fell apart. The winter of 1962/63 was the coldest in centuries and Sylvia, now with two children was living in a tiny London flat, ill with the flu and with little money.

On February 11 1963, Sylvia killed herself with cooking gas at the age of 30.

If you have not yet read the poetry of Sylvia Plath then I urge you to do so. Her poetry is hauntingly beautiful yet gut wrenchingly sad and will stir emotions within you that might surprise and at the same time delight you.



Here is the poem “Daddy” in full. It was written after the breakup of her marriage. The poem tells of her rejection of religion and of her getting over the death of her father & the breakup of her marriage.

Daddy

by Sylvia Plath



You do not do, you do not do

Any more, black shoe

In which I have lived like a foot

For thirty years, poor and white,

Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.



Daddy, I have had to kill you.

You died before I had time--

Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,

Ghastly statue with one gray toe

Big as a Frisco seal



And a head in the freakish Atlantic

Where it pours bean green over blue

In the waters off beautiful Nauset.

I used to pray to recover you.

Ach, du.



In the German tongue, in the Polish town

Scraped flat by the roller

Of wars, wars, wars.

But the name of the town is common.

My Polack friend



Says there are a dozen or two.

So I never could tell where you

Put your foot, your root,

I never could talk to you.

The tongue stuck in my jaw.



It stuck in a barb wire snare.

Ich, ich, ich, ich,

I could hardly speak.

I thought every German was you.

And the language obscene



An engine, an engine

Chuffing me off like a Jew.

A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.

I began to talk like a Jew.

I think I may well be a Jew.



The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna

Are not very pure or true.

With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck

And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack

I may be a bit of a Jew.



I have always been scared of you,

With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.

And your neat mustache

And your Aryan eye, bright blue.

Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--



Not God but a swastika

So black no sky could squeak through.

Every woman adores a Fascist,

The boot in the face, the brute

Brute heart of a brute like you.



You stand at the blackboard, daddy,

In the picture I have of you,

A cleft in your chin instead of your foot

But no less a devil for that, no not

Any less the black man who



Bit my pretty red heart in two.

I was ten when they buried you.

At twenty I tried to die

And get back, back, back to you.

I thought even the bones would do.



But they pulled me out of the sack,

And they stuck me together with glue.

And then I knew what to do.

I made a model of you,

A man in black with a Meinkampf look



And a love of the rack and the screw.

And I said I do, I do.

So daddy, I'm finally through.

The black telephone's off at the root,

The voices just can't worm through.



If I've killed one man, I've killed two--

The vampire who said he was you

And drank my blood for a year,

Seven years, if you want to know.

Daddy, you can lie back now.



There's a stake in your fat black heart

And the villagers never liked you.

They are dancing and stamping on you.

They always knew it was you.

Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

[along-for-the-ride]

Welcome back, jones jones.

I have read Ms. Plaths biography. She lived too much inside herself. IMO

[jones jones]

along-for-the-ride;1364733 wrote: Welcome back, jones jones.

I have read Ms. Plaths biography. She lived too much inside herself. IMO




Why thank you for the welcome! As for Ms Plath ... I love her poetry! :-6