Max’s Musings: Sylvia Plath

How do you learn about the other side?

For discussion this week, I wanted to investigate the poems of Sylvia Plath. Most known for her works of prose like The Bell Jar as well as poetry collections like The Colossus and Other Poems, Winter Trees, and Crossing the Water: Transitional Poems, Plath is just one of many poets who struggled with severe depression. Ultimately, Plath committed suicide in 1963.

It wasn’t until after her death that the poetry collection Ariel was discovered and published in 1965. The Restored Edition was published later in 2004. With an honest and heartfelt foreword written by Plath’s daughter, Frieda Hughes, the collection “found comfort in restoring the balance” of Plath as both the poet and the human.

Plath’s poem “Lady Lazareth” first exposed me to her dynamic wordcraft. Of all the poems I came across in Ariel, there was something honest and authentic about Plath’s “Barren Woman” which solidified its spot for this week.  

Barren Woman

Empty, I echo to the least footfall,

Museum without statues, grand with pillars, porticoes, rotundas.

In my courtyard a fountain leaps and sinks back into itself,

Nun-hearted and blind to the world. Marble lilies

Exhale their pallor like scent.

 

I imagine myself with a great public,

Mother of a white Nike and several bald-eyed Apollos.

Instead, the dead injure me with attentions, and nothing can happen.

The moon lays a hand on my forehead,

Blank-faced and mum as a nurse.

“Barren Woman” offers a peak behind the threshold of the woman experience. It dissects how societal expectations play on women. When a person is not able to meet or surpass their societal expectations, it is easy for them to feel inadequate and inferior. The speaker is no exception to this as she feels “Empty” as the feeling “sinks back into itself”. Women have been expected to deliver children since the beginning of time; women have always been more than that, but society is finally making strides to accept and respect them as such. Although the poem just scratches the surface, I am left with newfound understanding.

When I read a poem whose speaker holds a different perspective than mine, I find it a unique chance to learn about the world and its other inhabitants. As a poet, I have experimented with writing from perspectives or personas that do not coincide with my own reality to gain a new sense of empathy and appreciation for life.  

“Barren Woman” is about more than just a singular woman or womanhood in general. Through anything that makes someone different and unordinary from the rest of the population, people often fear them as lesser beings when said individuals don’t meet or surpass the societal expectations thrust upon them. Across the board, minorities have been ridiculed and feared for simply existing. Diversity is essential to unraveling the tapestry of hatred and ignorance.  

Just like the “museum without statues” that Plath writes about, I feel in a similar position with myself as a writer and a poet with little progress to show for it. What good is a poet without mountains and monuments of poetry? As much as I struggle with my own identity and adequacy, I wouldn’t change it. That, I am sure of.

“Barren Woman” by Sylvia Plath, in mid-century typewriter text.

The Evergreen Echo

In the second stanza, the speaker imagines herself overcoming her barrenness and becoming a mother to children like Greek gods. Nike, the goddess of victory, and Apollo, the god of medicine and poetry, offers hope in the speaker’s inability to find fertility. With the speaker’s internal and external struggles lasting for long periods of time, the longing for victory and healing over them is astounding and rejuvenating. As someone who has found Greek mythology a sanctuary from the real world, I find hope in the speaker’s desire to be a mother.

As a queer man, I have related to this poem in my own reality. As someone who cannot have children naturally, I related to the speaker and her struggles for parenthood. Although I have many options, ahead of me, only time will tell which path will be right for me and my fiancé.

It is easy to feel obsolete in a world that was not made for you. While I don’t fit the mold of a stereotypical man, I realize I am not the one “blind to the world” and its intersecting pathways. Although the speaker struggles with grasping a strong sense of self, it offers me hope in regaining my identity as a queer man and a writer.

The empty page is often more forgiving than the rest of the world. Seeking shelter from oneself when the rest of the world drags one down is not always enough to escape it. I understand Plath as someone who has faced the darkest parts of human experience. The poem offers insight into Plath’s suicide and how the feelings of inadequacy played their roles. Hughs pays homage to how her mother “used every emotional experience as if it were a scrap of material that could be pieced together to make a wonderful dress,” which highlights the mental artistry of her mother’s work.

I often wonder how my creative work will live on after I die. Plath’s daughter acknowledges through her mother’s tragic downfall, “The art was not to fall”. Like any creative medium, its artistry is immortal even when the creators themselves are not.

People hold and harbor feelings of barrenness within them. No matter how barren they feel, they ought to march on—water those struggling areas—in hopes they will start to grow into unspeakable realms of vibrant blooms and blossoms.