Prosers & Poets
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, near Boston, to a biology professor at Boston University and a schoolteacher. Unfortunately, her father passed away just two weeks after Sylvia’s eighth birthday. She published her first poem at eight-year-old in the children’s section of the Boston Herald.
Electra on Azalea Path
The day you died I went into the dirt,
Into the lightless hibernaculum
Where bees, striped black and gold, sleep out the blizzard
Like hieratic stones, and the ground is hard.
It was good for twenty years, that wintering -
As if you never existed, as if I came
God-fathered into the world from my mother's belly:
Her wide bed wore the stain of divinity.
I had nothing to do with guilt or anything
When I wormed back under my mother's heart.
Small as a doll in my dress of innocence
I lay dreaming your epic, image by image.
Nobody died or withered on that stage.
Everything took place in a durable whiteness.
The day I woke, I woke on Churchyard Hill.
I found your name, I found your bones and all
Enlisted in a cramped stone askew by an iron fence.
In this charity ward, this poorhouse, where the dead
Crowd foot to foot, head to head, no flower
Breaks the soil. This is Azalea path.
A field of burdock opens to the south.
Six feet of yellow gravel cover you.
The artificial red sage does not stir
In the basket of plastic evergreens they put
At the headstone next to yours, nor does it rot,
Although the rains dissolve a bloody dye:
The ersatz petals drip, and they drip red.
Another kind of redness bothers me:
The day your slack sail drank my sister's breath
The flat sea purpled like that evil cloth
My mother unrolled at your last homecoming.
I borrow the silts of an old tragedy.
The truth is, one late October, at my birth-cry
A scorpion stung its head, an ill-starred thing;
My mother dreamed you face down in the sea.
The stony actors poise and pause for breath.
I brought my love to bear, and then you died.
It was the gangrene ate you to the bone
My mother said: you died like any man.
How shall I age into that state of mind?
I am the ghost of an infamous suicide,
My own blue razor rusting at my throat.
O pardon the one who knocks for pardon at
Your gate, father - your hound-bitch, daughter, friend.
It was my love that did us both to death.
Sylvia attended Smith College in Northampton, MA. In the summer after her junior year at Smith, Sylvia was awarded a coveted position as guest editor at Mademoiselle magazine in New York City. Unfortunately the experience is not what she had hoped for and it lead to a depression, ultimately leading to her first suicide attempt, which is detailed her semi-autobiographical book, the Bell Jar. After a brief stay at a psychiatric institution she was able to complete her undergraduate degree at Smith in 1955 with honors. Once graduated from Smith she obtained a Fulbright scholarship to a college of Cambridge University where she continued her writing, this is where she also met English poet Ted Hughes, who she married on June 16, 1956.
Maudlin
Mud-mattressed under the sign of the hag
In a clench of blood, the sleep-talking virgin
Gibbets with her curse the moon's man,
Faggot-bearing Jack in his crackless egg :
Hatched with a claret hogshead to swig
He kings it, navel-knit to no groan,
But at the price of a pin-stitched skin
Fish-tailed girls purchase each white leg.
Sylvia and her husband spent the following two years in the US, where she taught at her alma mater and spent some time in Boston auditing poetry seminars. But once discovering she was pregnant, the couple moved back to the United Kingdom. In 1960 Sylvia published her first collection of poetry, The Colossus. Then in February 1961 she suffered a miscarriage, inspiring a number of poems. By late 1962 their marriage was falling apart and they separated, Sylvia returned to London with her children and moved into the home where she would end her life.
For a Fatherless Son
You will be aware of an absence, presently,
Growing beside you, like a tree,
A death tree, color gone, an Australian gum tree ---
Balding, gelded by lightning--an illusion,
And a sky like a pig's backside, an utter lack of attention.
But right now you are dumb.
And I love your stupidity,
The blind mirror of it. I look in
And find no face but my own, and you think that's funny.
It is good for me
To have you grab my nose, a ladder rung.
One day you may touch what's wrong ---
The small skulls, the smashed blue hills, the godawful hush.
Till then your smiles are found money.
Sylvia Plath took her own life in 1963. There continues to be controversy as to whether or not she sincerely meant to succeed in her suicide attempt, and indeed there is fair evidence supporting both perspectives. What is not contestable is the role Sylvia Plath has played in modern American poetry and specifically for many female poets.
Edge
The woman is perfected.
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity
Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare
Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.
Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little
Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded
Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden
Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.
The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.
Sylvia Plath's biography is abridged from the original Wikipedia article. Poetry selections were all authored by Plath and located from the following website.
Tags: poetry, poets, american poets, smith college, sylvia plath
Halloween Night
The fire is cracklingThe moonlight shines
I can hear the ghosts moaning
I'm drinking my coffee on Halloween night
Handing out candy to kids with a fright
My friend calls me up
She said her mom died
Someone took a sword to her heart
Her face is pale
And her DNA is cold
I get captured without me noticing
He takes me to the demon world and makes me
an angel
That's the end of me.
moonlight17 | age 9 | April 10, 2010
Find Your Writing Inspiration
A site rec for people who like to write fiction (prose), but maybe don't always have the inspiration:
http://community.livejournal.com/tamingthemuse/
It's a community on LiveJournal, and the entire concept is that every week a new prompt is posted. Members have one week to write a story relating to that prompt (in theme, using the word, or something else) that fits certain other criteria (it has to be readable/spellchecked, it has to be a certain length). The trick is, though, that you're supposed to do this every single week. If you do it for a certain number of weeks, you can start to get awards (which are essentially bragging rights and a pretty banner).
JamieG | age 20 | Phoenix, AZ, USA | April 10, 2010
Janet says...
If anyone wants to give this a shot and write some stories based on prompts from this community, please feel free to use the submission form at the bottom of the page to share them with the rest of the PurplePJs community! We love to showcase the work of our readers!Tags: prosers poets, prose, writing communities, writing
As The Rain Came Down
As the rain came down, the new moon had risenThe fire reflected in your eyes
Your marshmallow burnt
I played my harmonica and saw pictures in the fire
I got scared and stopped
You were gone
The next day you didn't come back...
moonlight17 | age 9 | April 9, 2010
Tags: poetry, love, outdoors, environment
since feeling is first
One of my teachers suggested we read "Since Feeling is First" by E.E. Cummings and I thought it would be a really good idea to post that on Poetry Cafe. I read this poem and really loved it. It's a good poem to experience.Mitchee | age 21 | April 5, 2010
Janet says...
By request, a poem. Using the comment and submission forms below, feel free to share your opinion and interpritation of this work--that's half the fun of featuring poetry here!
since feeling is first
e.e. cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
Flag
FlagThe flag is a but a symbolic banner
yet its true meaning we lack
and the allegiance has become
but a meaningless act
I shall not pledge
to this striped piece of linen
if its all that keeps me citizen
to a government that pushes control
I can no longer let myself be a victim of its choke hold
Leave me be
to express freedom on my own
its not the flag that bestows it
through it stars sewn
but by my own existence
in which god rightfully owns
Lindsay | age 16 | Florida | April 3, 2010
Tags: poetry, flag, patriotism, freedom
Reader-Submitted Poetry
Since Tanya's otherwise occupied at the moment, and I'm temping for her (don't worry, she'll be back soon!), I've decided to take this as an opportunity to feature some reader-submitted poetry! I'll start off with one of my own, and you should be on the lookout for more updates later today! As always, if you have a poem of your own that you'd like featured here on Poetry Cafe, feel free to submit it!
Lose My head
I used to be so famous
So loved but now, instead
I’m sitting here, just waiting
For me to lose my head
They say I am unworthy
Of having so much worth
It’s not my fault I’ve been rich
Since before my birth
They say that I’m a sinner
So much wrong, and nothing right
I say that it’s unfair, but
I’m not putting up a fight
It would be too degrading
To make a violent scene
Instead, I will allow them
To use their guillotine
They ask me for my name
I say it is “Madame”
I say I am a noble
They say my life’s a sham
I watched my king be murdered
A fate that I will share
Because the peasants hate me
As I am now aware
I sit and watch my captors
As they mock with glee
For they now rule the nobles
A class which includes me
I let them mock and mimic
I won’t cry, instead
I’ll lay down with dignity
As I lose my head
Tags: reader-submitted
Speak More Than Air
Speak More Than Air Silence was your language your rhythm and your beat and to get you to speak more than air was no less than a feat It seemed everyday that I drew closer to you the air became thicker with all the air that you spewed Now I've come so close I can't expect you to breath and now instead of silence it's words that you bleedLindsay | age 16 | Florida | January 16, 2010
Tags:
Breakfast
Breakfast
“I may be the only person in the world who sees
through you like cellophane,” he said,
“and I think it’s great—more people should live
empty lives
like yourself.”
I struggled with what he had said, Novocain-numb
as I laboriously chewed on the words, wondering if I really was
shallow—
and just as I felt myself unearthing the answer to life’s riddle
I noticed that my fork had slowly fallen and pierced the over-easy egg yolk
I’d been so careful to preserve. I watched the yellow yolk erupt and slowly
spread across the plate, drowning bacon and hash-browns and I wondered
if the breaking of the yolk was somehow a metaphor
for what he was doing to me—
pricking the transparent gelatinous layer that held
what was left of me together.
However, I found it hard to believe that my life
could be epitomized into a tidy egg analogy.
He must have taken my silent contemplation as an admission of defeat. He nudged
my ankle under the table, eager to hear my speech of concession. I looked
under the table as if confused about the commotion
and noted that my vegan boyfriend was wearing suede shoes.
This discovery of his hypocrisy was a beautiful relief to me.
For a moment I had almost begun to believe
he could be right about everything.
I smiled and let myself assume
this one mistake negated
everything he had ever said,
then went about sopping up the ruins of the yolk with greasy toast
and kept on chewing and smiling as he talked—
It was a beautiful night. I felt like orange juice.
I knew that if I could deflect his perfectly aimed insults,
I could shield myself from anything.
Martine | age 25 | Minneapolis | January 16, 2010
Tags:
All About Dr. Seuss
"OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!THERE IS FUN TO BE DONE! THERE ARE
POINTS TO BE SCORED. THERE ARE GAMES TO BE WON."
From: 'Oh, The Places You'll Go!'
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as the beloved Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. Ted's father, Theodor Robert, and grandfather were brewmasters in the city. His mother, Henrietta Seuss Geisel, often soothed her children to sleep by "chanting" rhymes remembered from her youth. Ted credited his mother with both his ability and desire to create the rhymes for which he became so well known.
Although the Geisels enjoyed great financial success for many years, the onset of World War I and Prohibition presented both financial and social challenges for the German immigrants. Nonetheless, the family persevered and again prospered, providing Ted and his sister, Marnie, with happy childhoods.
The influence of Ted's memories of Springfield can be seen throughout his work. Drawings of Horton the Elephant meandering along streams in the Jungle of Nool, for example, mirror the watercourses in Springfield's Forest Park from the period. The fanciful truck driven by Sylvester McMonkey McBean in The Sneetches could well be the Knox tractor that young Ted saw on the streets of Springfield. In addition to its name, Ted's first children's book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, is filled with Springfield imagery, including a look-alike of Mayor Fordis Parker on the reviewing stand, and police officers riding red motorcycles, the traditional color of Springfield's famed Indian Motocycles.
Ted left Springfield as a teenager to attend Dartmouth College, where he became editor-in-chief of the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth's humor magazine. Although his tenure as editor ended prematurely when Ted and his friends were caught throwing a drinking party, which was against the prohibition laws and school policy, he continued to contribute to the magazine, signing his work "Seuss." This is the first record of The Cat in the Hatthe "Seuss" pseudonym, which was both Ted's middle name and his mother's maiden name.
To please his father, who wanted him to be a college professor, Ted went on to Oxford University in England after graduation. However, his academic studies bored him, and he decided to tour Europe instead. Oxford did provide him the opportunity to meet a classmate, Helen Palmer, who not only became his first wife, but also a children's author and book editor.
After returning to the United States, Ted began to pursue a career as a cartoonist. The Saturday Evening Post and other publications published some of his early pieces, but the bulk of Ted's activity during his early career was devoted to creating advertising campaigns for Standard Oil, which he did for more than 15 years.
As World War II approached, Ted's focus shifted, and he began contributing weekly political cartoons to PM magazine, a liberal publication. Too old for the draft, but wanting to contribute to the war effort, Ted served with Frank Capra's Signal Corps (U.S. Army) making training movies. It was here that he was introduced to the art of animation and developed a series of animated training films featuring a trainee called Private Snafu.
While Ted was continuing to contribute to Life, Vanity Fair, Judge and other magazines, Viking Press offered him a contract to illustrate a collection of children's sayings called Boners. Although the book was not a commercial success, the illustrations received great reviews, providing Ted with his first "big break" into children's literature. Getting the first book that he both wrote and illustrated, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, published, however, required a great degree of persistence - it was rejected 27 times before being published by Vanguard Press.
The Cat in the Hat, perhaps the defining book of Ted's career, developed as part of a unique joint venture between Houghton Mifflin (Vanguard Press) and Random House. Houghton Mifflin asked Ted to write and illustrate a children's primer using only 225 "new-reader" vocabulary words. Because he was under contract to Random House, Random House obtained the trade publication rights, and Houghton Mifflin kept the school rights. With the release of The Cat in the Hat, Ted became the definitive children's book author and illustrator.
After Ted's first wife died in 1967, Ted married an old friend, Audrey Stone Geisel, who not only influenced his later books, but now guards his legacy as the president of Dr. Seuss Enterprises.
At the time of his death on September 24, 1991, Ted had written and illustrated 44 children's books, including such all-time favorites as Green Eggs and Ham, Oh, the Places You'll Go, Fox in Socks, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. His books had been translated into more than 15 languages. Over 200 million copies had found their way into homes and hearts around the world.
Besides the books, his works have provided the source for eleven children's television specials, a Broadway musical and a feature-length motion picture. Other major motion pictures are on the way.
His honors included two Academy awards, two Emmy awards, a Peabody award and the Pulitzer Prize.
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