The Colourful Words of Sylvia Plath

SP’s words are often a veil behind her mental condition … the heaven and hell extremes of bi-polar can be seen in her poems … the following are some lines from her work … some of those extremes often expressed in extremely colourful  ‘I want to be noticed’ words …

From ‘Street Song’ –

By a mad miracle I go intact
Among the common rout
Thronging sidewalk, street,
And bickering shops;
Nobody blinks a lid, gapes,
Or cries that this raw flesh
Reeks of the butcher’s cleaver,
Its heart and guts hung hooked
And bloodied as a cow’s split frame
Parcelled out by white-jacketed assassins.

… in this early piece written in 1956 when she was in her early twenties she confesses her extreme difference compared to ordinary people (if there are any ordinary people out there!) …and  it doesn’t say a great deal in appreciation to the treatment received by the medical world … strong words – ‘reeks of the butcher’s cleaver’.

I guess she was lucky to live as long as she did … and much later in ‘Lady Lazarus’ (written at the time of her last birthday in Oct 1962) – she reflects back on the time she nearly didn’t make … but like Lazarus she did return from the dead –

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air

To me these are strong positive ‘I am I’ words and of course a statement for female assertion at a time when woman were far more secondary than they are today.

Men did not feature strongly in her life … at the stage of writing this poem Ted Hughes had left for another woman … her father had died when she was age of 8 … and her early childhood days had Hitler and his mob in the background. Coupled to the competitive nature of a poet wanting to be heard in her own right – and note the support given to TH in establishing his name in ‘The Hawk and the Rain’.

Unfortunately there would be no second Lazarus event in that dreadful cold London winter of 1963 … that would be an unheard of extreme.

She often felt caught by her condition … there is no way out in that black world … at least that is often the way the depressed feel …

From ‘Apprehensions’ –

A gray wall now, clawed and bloody.
Is there no way out of the mind?
Steps at my back spiral into a well.
There are no trees, or birds in this well,
There is only a sourness.

Fortunately there was also a white side to her black days … the high shining glimpse that momentarily dazzles the heart in stunned amazement … seen in such poems as ‘Black Rook in Rainy Weather’ –

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait’s begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.

 
Ted Hughes remarks on her depressive condition in strong words too … the following lines are taken from his ‘Birthday Letters’ sequence …

From ‘Dream Life’ –

As if you descended in each night’s sleep
Into your father’s grave 

From ‘ The Blackbird’ –

You were the jailbird of your murderer –
 Which imprisoned you

You may think the SP colour should be blue … but this is not the case and TH defines her emphatically with the colour red  …

From ‘Red’ the last poem in the ‘Birthday Letters’ sequence –

Red was your colour.

Everything you painted you painted white
Then splashed it with roses, defeated it,
Leaned over it, dripping roses,
Weeping roses, and more roses,
Then sometimes, among them, a little bluebird.

… and echoing TH…  as he so aptly states …

But the jewel you lost was blue.

My tribute on this her birthday …

A Red Remembrance

In the red glow of morning
the unquenchable shivering
flames of life fracture
into a remembrance
on this red-letter day.

Your red passion for life
rendered rare colourful words.

And as the sun-flame blood rays
rescind in evening light to
open again
on the unseen world
you are remembered.

Red was your colour
and red remembered.

I must end this post on a very positive note. Here is that opening line in relation to motherhood from her first ‘Ariel’ poem – ‘Morning Song’ …

Love set you going like a fat gold watch

… and reading it back to you SP – you are indeed still going strong!

A thank you for the indefatigable legacy of your words.

Richard Scutter

Footnote

This is a link to a previous SP Birthday Post which include a link to an interview by the BBC with SP at the time of her last birthday in October 1962

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

The above poem by Dylan Thomas is perhaps the most well-known villanelle.  A villanelle has 19 lines and comprises 5 stanzas of 3 lines and a closing quatrain of 4 lines.

Like the sonnet the last two lines are arguably the most important lines of the villanelle. These not only form the closing rhyming couplet but these lines appear repeatedly through-out the first 5 stanzas.

Looking at the above poem the closing lines are –

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

If we label these lines A and B then these lines must appear in the five 3 line stanzas as follows in order to conform to the format of the villanelle.

S1 … A / l2 / B
S2 … a / l2 / A
S3 … a / l2 / B
S4 … a / l2 / A
S5 … a / l2 / B

So after defining the ending two lines 6 lines are automatically defined in the three-line stanzas. Furthermore the rhyming scheme is such that all the first lines, (labelled a) must rhyme with A. In the case of Dylan Thomas’ poem each of these lines must rhyme with night. And all the second lines of the above stanzas (labelled l2) must rhyme. In the case of this poem the six rhyming words chosen by Thomas are – day, they, way, bay, gay and pray.

The first and second line of the closing quatrain must use the rhyming of A and l2 … in this case height and pray.

So looking at the rhyming through-out the poem the 19 end words are –

Night, day, light / right, they night / bright, bay, light / flight, way, night / sight, gay, light
Height, pray, light, night

My advice is to create the rhyming couplet first. This is the key to the poem. You have then created 8 lines of the 19 line poem.

You will then need 5 lines that rhyme with the first line of the couplet and six lines where you are quite at liberty to choose the rhyme.

Below is my attempt at reversing the theme and also the two streams of rhyming words … basing the poem on the couplet …

Go gentle and enjoy your last day
Give a smile as you pass quietly away

Go gentle and enjoy your last day

go gentle and enjoy your last day
don’t focus on loss of your sight
give a smile as you pass quietly away

a wise man knows how to play
knows exactly the way that is right
go gentle and enjoy your last day

and a good man accepts the path-way
as he enters the door of the night
give a smile as you pass quietly away

now a wild man in wild disarray
thinks again his disorganised plight
go gentle and enjoy your last day

while a grave man will rise up to say
‘the end is indeed turning bright’
give a smile as you pass quietly away

so to all I respectfully pray
just savour those last rays of light
go gentle and enjoy your last day
give a smile as you pass quietly away

Richard Scutter 15 May 2013

The official website dedicated to Dylan Thomas – http://www.dylanthomas.com/

Here is an audio of the Radio National program ‘Poetica’ on 11 May in which Villanelles were featured.