Rachael+Wheeler

= = **Wiki Poetry Project 2010 By: Rachael Wheeler ** 

**Anne Sexton** was born in 1928 and died in 1974. She was a lady who based her poems off of her own confessions, coming from depression. Sexton attended Garland Junior College and later attended poetry workshops in the Boston area, including Robert Lowell's poetry seminars at Boston University. One of Sexton's fellow students at Boston University was Sylvia Plath, whose suicide she commemorated in a poem, "Sylvia's Death." Sexton's poetry career was short lived. She did not become a poet until the late 1950's. However, she did receive several major literary prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize for //Live or Die //and an American Academy of Arts and Letters traveling fellowship. Her suicide came after a series of mental breakdowns. That does not keep me from having a terrible need of--shall I say the word--religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. --Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother  The town does not exist except where one black-haired tree slips up like a drowned woman into the hot sky. The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die.
 * The Starry Night **

It moves.The are all alive. Even the moon bulges in its orange irons to push the children, like a god, from its eye. The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night, sucked up by that great dragon, to split from my life with no flag, no belly, no cry. Sexton creates such great imagery with this poem. Before she even starts writing she references Van Gogh so the reader will imagine his painting as they are reading her work. I chose to supply the painting here so my readers would be able to view the painting while reading. The first stanza is referencing the painting, she is giving her interpretation of Van Gogh's work. She says "this is how I want to die," this is a peaceful image--the town is quiet, the starts are pretty and the mountain is dark. The line "up like a drowned woman into the hot sky" automatically makes me think that Sexton is contemplating death. Which due to her depression, was something she contemplated often and suicide was her demise. The second stanza is referencing the stars in the sky, how beautiful and peaceful they are. Another thing she hopes for, when she dies. The third stanza she is telling the reader not to be sad, not to cry at her death. This is her wish, just as she wishes to have such a peaceful death as Van Gogh paints in his painting. I enjoyed this poem, not too deep yet still deep enough past first glance.Sexton used similes to allow the reader to better image the painting. This helped because without the painting being at your side--earlier days there was no internet for people to Google the image while they read--it would be hard to only imagine the painting without a little help from the narrator.
 * Analysis:**

Sylvia's Death for Sylvia Plath

Oh Sylvia, Sylvia, with a dead box of stones and spoons,

with two children, two meteors, wandering loose in the tiny playroom,

with your mouth into the sheet, into the roofbeam, into the dumb player,

(Sylvia, Sylvia, where did you go after you wrote me from Devonshire about raising potatoes and keeping bees?)

what did you stand by, just how did you lie down into?

Thief!-- how did you crawl into,

crawl down alone into the death I wanted so badly and for so long,

the death we said we both outgrew, the one we wore on our skinny breasts,

the one we talked of so often each time we downed three extra dry martinis in Boston,

the death that talked of analysts and cures, the death that talked like brides and plots,

the death we drank to, the motives and then the quiet deed?

(In Boston the dying, ride in cabs, yes death again, that ride home with //our// boy.)

O Sylvia, remember the sleepy drummer who beat on our eyes with an old story,

how we wanted to let him come like a sadist or a New York fairy

to do his job, a necessity, a window in a wall or a crib,

and since that time he waited under our heart, our cupboard,

and I see not that we store him up year after year, old suicides

and I know at the news of your death, a terrible taste for it, like salt.

(And me, me too. And now, Sylvia, you again with death again, that ride home with //our// boy.)

And I say only with my arms stretched out into that stone place,

what is your death but an old belonging,

a mole that fell out of one of your poems?

(O friend, while the moon's bad, and the king's gone, and the queen's at her wit's end the bar fly ought to sing!)

O tiny mother, you too! O funny duchess! O blonde thing!

After reading this poem I am aware of Anne Sexton's and Sylvia Plath's friendship. This poem makes me feel as though Sexton is envious of Plath's suicide. Sexton gives the reader insight of the friendship the two once shared as well as the talks and contemplations they had together about suicide. The first sentence gives detail of how Sylvia actually committed suicide. With her children in the next room playing, beating herself with rocks and spoons. The first sentence in parentheses is directed more toward Sylvia herself and not so much the reader. Sexton wants to know Plath's mindset, what happened to her thoughts and health after they last spoke about such cheerful things. The poem continues in the same manner, recalling their thoughts and actions together with Sexton talking directly to Plath in the parentheses portions. She is simply envious, as Sexton too want to (and did) commit suicide. This poem could also reference the fact that Plath did not receive much recognition for her work until after her death, something Sexton could only hope to gain. Even though Sexton was noticed before her death she hoped to be more well known after her death. If she only knew today that people are looking at her work even long after her death she may not have been so eager to go. I enjoyed this poem, it was interesting to see the relationship the two women had together through the lines that Sexton wrote about Plath. It is difficult to imagine something to intimate between friends, when it has not happened to you personally, but this poem really conveys the emotion a person would have after finding out their friend has committed suicide. Anger and jealousy, from Sexton, are very evident throughout the poem; not so interesting seeing as how we know she struggled with depression and had spouts of wanting to commit suicide her self-which she eventually succeeded at.
 * Analysis:**

** Sylvia Plath ** was born in 1932 and died in 1963. She did not receive much recognition until after her death in 1963. Her poems often begin in autobiography, their success depends on Plath's imaginative transformations of experience into myth, as in a number of her poems where the figure of her Prussian father is transformed into an emblem for masculine authority. In many ways Plath embodied the bright, young, middle-class woman of the 1950s. She went to Smith College on a scholarship and graduated summa cum laude. She studied at Cambridge University in England and met and married Ted Hughes. It seemed she had such a great life, a husband and two children. However, in her poems we see strain of her grand life. Her work is galvanized by suffering. She studied with Anne Sexton at Boston University where they were both attending Robert Lowell's poetry seminars. After a long life struggling with depression and bipolar disorder Plath took her own life in order to end her misery.

Love set you going like a fat gold watch. The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry Took its place among the elements.
 * Morning Song **

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue. In a drafty museum, your nakedness Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen: A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral I my Victorian nightgown. Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try Your handful of notes; The clear vowels rise like balloons.


 * Analysis: **When you first read this poem you get the sense that Sylvia Plath is taking you through her daily life. She is writing about an "Everyday" experience, one that is near and dear to her heart. The beginning of the poem is about the birth of her child. Her love immediately set in at the first sight of this child which she made. She watches the nurse tend to her duties as the newborn child is submersed in the beginning of daily life activities. The crowd in the hospital room are in awe of the newborn, this great "Statue". The second stanza talks about a museum which mirrors a hospital room, people gawk at the statues but stand only in amazement at the sight. The third stanza is more about the mother starring at the child. She sees herself only as the baby's protector, not the creator. The next stanza, hits on the silence of the sleeping baby-stirring nothing, not even the pink (girl) roses which are all over the baby's belongings. Until the baby starts crying at which point the mother hears the far sea in her ear. The fifth stanza alerts the reader that the mother is breast feeding the baby, her breasts are ready - "cow heavy" - and she is willingly leaving her bed to nurture the baby. The baby is eager and hungry, with no drool "clean as a cat". The stanza breaks with the window and then carries on into the sixth stanza with morning breaking through the window. Eloquent how she allows the window to end the stanza and then pick back up--as the morning sun would end the night yet pick up with beginning of the next day. The last stanza allows the reader to finally know what the morning song is. It is the baby's cries, waking the mother; eager for breakfast and the start of a new day. 
 * Daddy **

You do not do, you do not domedia type="youtube" key="1lNTYK2U15c" height="364" width="445" align="right" 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 the 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 gypsy 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.

I have provided this reading of the poem //Daddy// because it gave me a better understanding of the meaning of the poem than did just reading the poem.The poem is about a father/daughter relationship. The reader is Sylvia Plath, who lost her father at age eight. At this point in a child's life you still adore your parents and love them unconditionally. However, it seems as though Plath was angry with her father and the fact that he had to die so soon. At the start of the poem she loves her father, she begins to enlighten the reader of her fright of this man. She clearly states "barely daring to breather or achoo," she was afraid to make the wrong sound in front of this man. That is something a child should not have to endure, especially with their own father. As the poem goes on she express her aggression she holds toward him more readily--she compares him to a Nazi, the devil and a vampire. Later, the conflict of this relationship continues with her husband which led to a short and painful marriage. In “Daddy”, the author illustrates her feelings of anger and resentment towards her father and husband along with being oppressed for most of her life through her poetic devices of vivid metaphor, imagery, rhyme, tone, and simile. Strong metaphors help relay the message of this poem, shoes and feet are a reoccurring theme during the poem. In the second line the foot lives in the shoe, which protects it and keeps it safe and warm. Whereas later in the poem the black shoe seems to be a metaphor for a coffin which keeps the corpse (foot) bound within its realm never to escape. Later the black boot is used when Plath is referring to her father as a Nazi. Similes are present to reinforce the fact that Plath has not had an easy life, she speaks of being a Jew and stays on the topic for a few lines, referencing how she may as well have been a Jew. The way she was treated, to her, was like a Jew at Auschwitz. At the end of the poem she goes on to add that not only did she not like her father, but the entire village did not like him either. They were glad to see him go, "They are dancing and stamping on you." And now "I'm through," she is moving past this anger by writing out her feelings.
 * Analysis:**

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%; text-align: left;">**Child** Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing. I want to fill it with color 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.

In this poem Plath is describing how beautiful her child is, and how she longs to give him everything she has. However, she is despaired over the fact that she cannot give him these things a child needs. She acknowledges that the child's eye "is the one absolutely beautiful thing," I feel that she wants to give the child everything that is pure and grand. But due to her depression and constant fears she can only think of "troublous" images. She thinks of dark and grimacing things instead of happy thoughts for her child. This poem is similar to Morning Song in that is creates a mother/child relationship with the voice coming from the mother. The mother paints such imagery for the reader to observe. The images she paints for us are happy and full of joy and color until the sudden reality hits--that the mother will not be able to give these joyous things to her child due to her own shortcomings and therefore the poem's images change to dark and dreary. I have provided a picture of the snowdrop flower, because I did not know what it looked like but after seeing it I can see how this would cause Plath upset. Even when she speaks of "April snowdrop" a beautiful white flower, with a strait stalk "without a wrinkle"; there is still a dark undertone. When looking at the pretty white flower, it looks as though the petals are hanging their head--maybe in disappointment? This is a secret message which Plath is trying to portray, even this beautiful flower cannot be viewed without having a negative effect on her mind. She sees the dark in everything and therefore knows that she cannot provide her child with the wonderful life every child deserves.
 * Analysis:**


 * Works Cited **

Sexton, Anne. //The Starry Night//. 7th ed. 2. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008. 1439. Print.

Sexton, Anne. //Sylvia's Death//. 7th ed. 2. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008. 1439-1441. Print.

Plath, Sylvia. //Morning Song//. 7th ed. 2. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008. 1447. Print.

Plath, Sylvia. //Daddy//. 7th ed. 2. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008. 1480-1482. Print.

Plath, Sylvia. //Child//. 7th ed. 2. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008. 1483. Print.