April is National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration worldwide. The month celebrates poetry’s place in our culture, honors both modern and classic poetry, and encourages reading both in and out of the classroom.
Poetry reading can be a transformative experience that encourages language skills and fosters empathy– a critical part of the human experience. Although various poets take up plenty of space on my bookshelf, Sylvia Plath is my personal favorite.
Sylvia Plath, born in 1932, was an American writer best known for The Bell Jar. In recent years, this novel has taken Tik Tok by storm, with many individuals resonating with her Fig Tree analogy, an expression of paralyzing indecision that many young adults relate to.
However, Plath was not only a novelist, but a powerful poet, writing about nature, death, mental instability, and trauma.
Plath is well known for her emotional honesty and powerful imagery. Her poem “Poppies in October” depicts a vibrant burst of color in a bleak and colorless landscape, exploring a theme of unasked for beauty in a dying and grey world.
“Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly —
A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky
Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.
O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.”
– From “Poppies in October”, Sylvia Plath
Plath influenced history through pioneering the “confessional” poetry movement – the idea of exploring previously taboo topics like mental illness and oppression. Plath lost her father at the age of eight, an event that shaped her work and literary voice profoundly, showing up in her work as an infatuation with death. This already dark start to her career progressed as she met and married Ted Hughes, a man whose alleged abuse and affair assisted in Plath’s deteriorating mental health. Throughout this chapter of her life, Plath wrote poems such as “Pursuit,” and “The Jailer.” After the couple’s separation, poems in Plath’s collection Ariel reference the relationship.
“And we, too, had a relationship—
Tight wires between us,
Pegs too deep to uproot, and a mind like a ring
Sliding shut on some quick thing,
The constriction killing me also.”
– From “The Rabbit Catcher”, Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath’s work challenged gender roles of the time period with its intensity and honesty. Her style is frequently referenced still in discussions of dark themes and the intersection of the personal and the poetic. Plath gave women the freedom to write about topics that were forbidden before, giving them a platform to discuss gender roles, trauma, and depression.
This poetry month, spend some time with Sylvia Plath’s work; consider its contemplations about women, marriage, and mental illness, and reflect on her influence on the world of literature. There is no better month to spend some time in between the thought-provoking stanzas. Who knows, maybe you’ll be inspired to write some poetry yourself.
