Thread: Sylvia Plath

I've been writing for awhile now but tried to stay away from the influences of other poets. Not to mention the ones that I'd been exposed to I didn't like much. I just decided that I should study published poets and I found a woman named Sylvia Plath. She is amazing, but I'd never heard of her before. What does everyone else think about her? Are there any other poets similar that I should look up?

She's great, and quite famous. I'm in the minority that I like her prose better though. Read The Bell Jar.

I'll look it up. I've only just started on her completed works. Maybe up to 43 poems so far. My favorites that I've read are soliloquy of the solipsist and Dialogue between ghost and priest. I've noticed she uses the words green and blood a lot.

P of P... Plath is amazing. I strongly recommend you try to get hold of a recording of her reading her later poems. Reading her 'Letters Home' is also a wonderful experience. If you haven't read him yet, TS Eliot is a must read, as are Emily Bronte, John Lennon, Noel Gallagher and WB Yeats.

She has one novel, The Bell Jar, which I just recently read and liked very much. It's pretty depressing, but still worth reading. So don't read it if you're already depressed. It won't help very much. =P I love her writing style ... though she does seem to have an obsession with similies.

Ah, a little extra depression can't hurt- especially if it's well written! I'm trying to get it from the library...yarg! Oh, yes Bourbon i'll check those other poets out. thank you.

Originally Posted by PrisonerOfPrey

I've been writing for awhile now but tried to stay away from the influences of other poets. Not to mention the ones that I'd been exposed to I didn't like much. I just decided that I should study published poets and I found a woman named Sylvia Plath. She is amazing, but I'd never heard of her before. What does everyone else think about her? Are there any other poets similar that I should look up?

i'm not quite sure i understand
why you would stay away from
the influence of other poets > ?

*looks of confusion*

as far as i'm concerned there is absolutely nothing wrong
with being influenced by other poets, in fact, i would encourage such
sylvia plath is as good as any place to start and do read her 'daddy' poem
it's incredibly amazing, the power that women packs into a few lines, phenomenal

All poets are influenced by other poets.

I loved the Bell Jar and she was certainly a fine poet, but I have a beef with her because she made it ok for generations of miserable teenagers to whine about how depressed they are.

Further reading; her ex-husband, Ted Hughes. He was probably her biggest influence, and he's arguably a better poet.

I have to second the Ted Hughes thing. When I studied Plath and Hughes in college, I didn't much care for the selected poems of hers that I was supposed to read, but then I found one in the stack that was amazing. Later research revealed that it was one of Hughes' poems, not Plath's. Not to say that some of her poems aren't nice, but I just didn't care for most of them.

My favorite Plath poem:

Sylvia Plath

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.



I love Plath.

I love both Hughes and Plath. I second getting a recording of her reading her work. Plath's poetry is so lyrical that I think that I'd love it even if I didn't speak English.

For just plain fun, grab The Iron Giant, a children's book that Hughes wrote.

the influence thing... It's just that I feel like if I started reading lots of poetry instead of retaining my ability's I would start mimicking one person. And, I feel like i'm doing really well so far. (Not that I don't read the occasional poem or two)

Originally Posted by Mike C

I loved the Bell Jar and she was certainly a fine poet, but I have a beef with her because she made it ok for generations of miserable teenagers to whine about how depressed they are.

Yeah. But she was real depressed.

For good reason, as well.

Originally Posted by PrisonerOfPrey

the influence thing... It's just that I feel like if I started reading lots of poetry instead of retaining my ability's I would start mimicking one person. And, I feel like i'm doing really well so far. (Not that I don't read the occasional poem or two)

Actually, it's really interesting that you chose Plath as the source of your mimicking quandary. Plath is widely criticized for "not being original enough". I've heard it says that all of her poetry is pretty easily traceable to a few other poets who she was experimentally writing in the style of. So, if you let Plath be your primary influence, it will be like being influenced by several poets.

However, I think it's silly to not want to be influenced. Simply by writing in a format that will be accepted as poetry, you're already confining yourself to an immense amount of influence from others. It's not bad. It's how we learn, it's how we communicate and it's how we create.

Although, there is something to be said about limiting your influences. Missy Elliot stopped listening to popular music for a year while working on her last album, just to avoid being influenced by the industry. Still, without influence from thousands of others before her, there's no way her music would sound anything like it sounds now.

Originally Posted by Mike C

All poets are influenced by other poets.

I loved the Bell Jar and she was certainly a fine poet, but I have a beef with her because she made it ok for generations of miserable teenagers to whine about how depressed they are.

"she made it ok for generations of miserable teenagers to whine about how depressed they are" because she was a fine poet?

Ah, but Poe could never be blamed.