Plath & Poetry

Little poppies, little hell flames,
Do you do no harm?

You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns.

And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.

A mouth just bloodied.
Little bloody skirts!

There are fumes that I cannot touch.
Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?

If I could bleed, or sleep!
If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!

Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and stilling.

But colorless. Colorless.
– Poppies In July, Ariel

I just wanted to share a few of my  favourite snippets of Plath poetry today. I’ve been devouring Ariel in its entirety again over the past few weeks and pouring over her notes and copies of her original manuscript like crazy trying to decipher her writing process. I go for long stretches of time where I ‘forget’ about her, but then rediscovering her actual poetry and re-reading The Bell Jar serve as a welcome reminder of how powerful, personal and perfect her writing is.

Ria Xx