When I was about thirteen I discovered Sylvia.
In her writing I found a perfect refuge.
A place where the dark beauty of torn words, seemed to echo the yearnings of my teen-age heart.
I read her with a fierce hunger, craving the shadow and edge of her poetry.
I liked to shock passing adults by quoting her liberally, and took to reading A Alverez's, 'The savage god', in the childish belief that it would augment my reputation as an emerging, (ahem) intellectual!
At fifteen I discovered Anais, and in her diaries found a wild, wanton openness that was entirely foreign to the world view of my home.
When Anais declared, that some read to confirm their misery and others to deny it, I resolved to extend my reading, beyond the troubled works of the like of Sylvia, Virginia and Ann!
Still, the dark words call.
And, still, they are so beautiful...
Child
Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with colour and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose names you meditate...
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little
Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images should be
grand and classical
Not this troublous
wringing of hands,this dark
ceiling without a star.
Sylvia Plath
What a beautiful post. You so captured a young girl's development. I especially enjoyed the part about becoming an intellectual...oh, how I remember reading new authors and thinking how my mind had expanded, then realizing I was just 'getting it'...that learning never stopped. Thank you for a lovely snapshot!
ReplyDeleteAnother beautiful post.
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy it.
I too began my love of all things Sylvia in High School,thank you for the reminders.In her words... "There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them" I am off to have one ,only not too hot due to hot flashes/flushes ! xx
ReplyDeleteShe also said: "Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I've taken for granted." would that she had clung a little harder, to life in the end.. Thanks Les, Kanna and Kittie, it's so wonderful to get your comments. They make my day! xxx elle
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