Those are three of my most favorite poems of all time by Sylvia Plath. "Cut" I read back in the early 90s for the first time, and back then I was intimidated by other poets and had difficulty understanding literature at that magnitude. But "Cut" for some reason was a really easy read for me and I fell in love with the imagery in it, not because any dark sense of metaphor but merely because of her talent of painting with words.
It wasn't until recently that I started to force myself to read more of her work to get over my fear of being intimidated. It worked. With no pressure of anxiety of judgement of teachers grading me, the pickup of understanding became easy, no performance anxiety.
"Colossus" is my second favorite poem. It describes her love hate relationship with her father whom she didn't really get to know because he died when she was young and hated the denial of a longer relationship. And also had an "Electra complex" element to it knowing her relationship with her abusive husband Ted Hughes.
"Lady Lazarus" is basically her imagining herself as the female version of the Lazarus of the bible, in that she survived death in her attempts at suicide, that she felt like she had 9 lives like a cat, but also in that she attempted suicide once every decade since youth. NO I am not saying I value suicide or am promoting it, just in that in her poem the imagery again, is striking in her word choice.
"The Applicant" is how she feels as a woman like being second class always feeling like she was being interviewed like on a job in every aspect of her life, including dating and marriage and work.
And "Mushrooms". I don't like them as food itself, but her poem I love. It is about how intrepid they are adapting and pushing even seemly impenetrable narrow gaps between sidewalks and bricks and pushing other foliage and grass aside and growing on trees under very little sunlight sometimes, and how they can seemingly not be there one day but swamp the same location the next day. Again, vivid use of words.
For the poet lovers here, what are other authors, say like Dickenson or Angelou do you like?
It wasn't until recently that I started to force myself to read more of her work to get over my fear of being intimidated. It worked. With no pressure of anxiety of judgement of teachers grading me, the pickup of understanding became easy, no performance anxiety.
"Colossus" is my second favorite poem. It describes her love hate relationship with her father whom she didn't really get to know because he died when she was young and hated the denial of a longer relationship. And also had an "Electra complex" element to it knowing her relationship with her abusive husband Ted Hughes.
"Lady Lazarus" is basically her imagining herself as the female version of the Lazarus of the bible, in that she survived death in her attempts at suicide, that she felt like she had 9 lives like a cat, but also in that she attempted suicide once every decade since youth. NO I am not saying I value suicide or am promoting it, just in that in her poem the imagery again, is striking in her word choice.
"The Applicant" is how she feels as a woman like being second class always feeling like she was being interviewed like on a job in every aspect of her life, including dating and marriage and work.
And "Mushrooms". I don't like them as food itself, but her poem I love. It is about how intrepid they are adapting and pushing even seemly impenetrable narrow gaps between sidewalks and bricks and pushing other foliage and grass aside and growing on trees under very little sunlight sometimes, and how they can seemingly not be there one day but swamp the same location the next day. Again, vivid use of words.
For the poet lovers here, what are other authors, say like Dickenson or Angelou do you like?
![[Image: MmQV79M.png]](https://i.imgur.com/MmQV79M.png)
