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I have lately been enraptured with these poetry readings by Sylvia Plath (starting with my favorite, Lady Lazarus):
( Daddy. )
Or, links: Lady Lazarus (full text) and Daddy (full text).
I love these poems because they are beautiful, of course, but there is more to it than that.
I stumbled upon "Lady Lazarus" two days ago after not reading it for years and was surprised to discover I still have it nearly memorized. When and why I learned it by heart I can't remember, but it is firmer, deeper embedded there now for having heard—dozens of times, sometimes on repeat—Plath read it. "Daddy" is incredible too, better also for having heard it—it's an auditory poem, thick with rhyme and halfway singsong as more than benefits its content. But where "Daddy" for me is a work of art and a window into Plath, "Lady Lazarus" peeks also into myself.
My suicidal ideation is purely that, just thought, just the idea of it, and it's usually fairly tame to boot, more a thought of "if I could die" rather than "how I could die." But for much of my life I've gone the way of a phoenix: living, glowing, burning, falling to ash, and rebirthing. I used to fight through my depression, fight the society that didn't suit me, until it all dragged me down in a burst of pain. Then I rose to try again—and fail again, eventually. The phoenix isn't reborn, small spring-fresh, wiser each time, able to live longer, burn slower; the burning is inevitable, and for me it came ever-faster, ever more painful. Which is why these last few years I've settled for something more passive, content not to try so hard and so not risk such spectacular failure. But the tradeoff is that the less combative life is less colorful: I do less and achieve less, so while I'm safer and happier living like this I do miss how I used to live and I idolize the pain that came with it as a badge of honor. In a way I mourn who I used to be—it hurt like hell, but it felt real.
My heart—it really used to go.
And other, pithy, bastardized quotes. "Lady Lazarus" is a part of me—the part of me that used to be.
( Daddy. )
Or, links: Lady Lazarus (full text) and Daddy (full text).
I love these poems because they are beautiful, of course, but there is more to it than that.
I stumbled upon "Lady Lazarus" two days ago after not reading it for years and was surprised to discover I still have it nearly memorized. When and why I learned it by heart I can't remember, but it is firmer, deeper embedded there now for having heard—dozens of times, sometimes on repeat—Plath read it. "Daddy" is incredible too, better also for having heard it—it's an auditory poem, thick with rhyme and halfway singsong as more than benefits its content. But where "Daddy" for me is a work of art and a window into Plath, "Lady Lazarus" peeks also into myself.
My suicidal ideation is purely that, just thought, just the idea of it, and it's usually fairly tame to boot, more a thought of "if I could die" rather than "how I could die." But for much of my life I've gone the way of a phoenix: living, glowing, burning, falling to ash, and rebirthing. I used to fight through my depression, fight the society that didn't suit me, until it all dragged me down in a burst of pain. Then I rose to try again—and fail again, eventually. The phoenix isn't reborn, small spring-fresh, wiser each time, able to live longer, burn slower; the burning is inevitable, and for me it came ever-faster, ever more painful. Which is why these last few years I've settled for something more passive, content not to try so hard and so not risk such spectacular failure. But the tradeoff is that the less combative life is less colorful: I do less and achieve less, so while I'm safer and happier living like this I do miss how I used to live and I idolize the pain that came with it as a badge of honor. In a way I mourn who I used to be—it hurt like hell, but it felt real.
My heart—it really used to go.
And other, pithy, bastardized quotes. "Lady Lazarus" is a part of me—the part of me that used to be.
