Poet 14: Sylvia Plath

When Sylvia was eight, her father died, and she declared, "I'll never speak to God again." It is obvious from her poetry that she did not. She wrote over 274 poems in her 31 years of life. Her last one was written six days before she took her life in the dead of the coldest winter in England since 1947.

She was spoke early and was writing complege poems by the age of five. John Dryden once said,

"Great wits are sure to madness near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide,"

Here is one poem that she wrote eleven days before she died. Her poor children!

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 name 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.

P.S. Here is a website on neurotic poets I found fascinating.