Found It!

 

Don't you love that feeling after you have looked for something for a few days and finally find it?  I know what you are thinking and no, it wasn't this picture.  I had nearly given up hope of ever remembering what Sylvia Plath poem it was that I analyzed at age 18 in my high school English class (I discussed this poem in a previous post), but my diligence has finally paid off.  I first came across this poem rather serendipitously, picking it at random out of a stack my teacher had made available to the class.  I acknowledge my first reaction to the poem was a bit of dazed bewilderment.  This soon transformed into that raptured awe that Marie Howe describes so well "Be completely open-innocent, if you will, of a poem.  Walk in, just like it's water, and say, 'what's this?' And read it over and over again.... Read with that kind of ignorant joy, and let yourself be bewildered when you're bewildered."

So I allowed myself to be perplexed, to gaze in wonderment of the violent imagery, the denseness of both simile and metaphor, and the overall anguished voice trying to convey anguish of which no one else will ever understand.  The free verse felt inviting to me.  It said "I am straight forward, I am not holding anything back, these are my true, unadulterated feelings".  For me, this made Words more relatable than a fixed form poem and much more intriguing than any other piece of verse I had ever encountered.  I wanted to dissect it and put the puzzle back together. 

After reading over her poem a few times I knew I would have to do a little extra research to get a firmer grip on what the poem was trying to say.  So I read a brief biography of Plath and an analysis of the poem.  As I write this post I remember very little of the analysis except that she writing mainly about her father.  I have a great relationship with my dad.  I was not one of those kids that got made fun of a lot in high school.  So why did I relate to this poem?  Plath had the sort of passion for her poetry that I wanted for my own life.  She put her whole, undivided soul into her poetry.  She put her life on the line, insomuch that eventually it got the better of her and she took her own life.


When I think about Plath today I feel a strong sense of both respect and melancholy.  She inspired me.  She helped me find joy in writing and life.  I have the utmost admiration for her as a poet.  There is a part of me that wishes she were here now to feel comfort and reassurance.   These thoughts bring to mind connections with other media, specifically the Neutral Milk Hotel album "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea".  Throughout this album singer Jeff Mangum bemoans the death of Ann Frank and a similar longing to help restore her faith in humanity.  Maybe I will write a post devoted to it later.



Words by Sylvia Plath

Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes traveling
Off from the center like horses.

I love how it goes from a metaphor of words being like axes chopping down trees to a simile of words being like axes sounding like horse hoofs.  Now it seems to me that she is trying to communicate how deeply she is feeling these emotions.  Words are on the surface, within them is a metaphor, and within that is a simile.  These words have shaken her very core because she is the tree.  The imagery is very intense.  Her use of these literary elements contributes most to the overall tone of the poem.

The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock

Surely these emotions get the better of her at times.  Surely her pool of emotion is agitated when a rock is thrown in.  When the rock is thrown in.

That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road-

The break after "I" makes me feel like it is difficult for her to speak of how the words afflict her in the present.  Even though her father is now dead (the white skull), he is still very much a part of her life.  This idea continues through the following stanza.

Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.

Again, it is difficult for her to discuss what is at the bottom of the pool (thus the single word "While" and then a pause), yet it will always be with her (fixed stars govern a life).  Form plays a critical role in understanding the psyche of Plath as she writes.  She could have simply used a comma in order to convey a pause, but a complete break from while to the bottom of the pool is much more powerful.