Round 3 was decisive only in the Ariel Restored region, with "The Rabbit Catcher" amputating "Thalidomide". Each of the other races was decided by one vote each.
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| From Sylvia Plath Info |
So, we have "Poem for a Birthday" vs. "Three Women" and "Balloons" versus "The Rabbit Catcher". Wow. In the former region, we have two seminal poems whose composition spurned the two choices in the latter region. I already know where my votes will fall and will re-read past arguments/justifications again and hope to see some new analyses.
6 comments:
My votes are as follows:
Three Women and Balloons.
While I love "The Rabbit Catcher" - and can't think about the poem without thinking about Plath reading it - there is something in "Balloons" that I find perfect. The poem "delight[s] the heart" with it's tenderness and love.
"Three Women", as Jim mentioned, contains so much Plath - it sums up everything she wrote to that point and foreshadows everything to come.
Cheers
Peter
Three Women and Balloons for me also.
Poem for a Birthday
&
Balloons
My argument: Look! How connected these items are! Birthday. Balloons. What is a birthday without balloons? Balloons need a birthday. I'm being silly. Let the numbers decide.
p.s. Can we vote more than once? :)
Okay :
Poem for a Birthday
Balloons
Laurie! No voting twice - though if you vote anonymously I wouldn't necessarily know. Hanging chads don't count; voting is closed in Florida.
Actually it's a good argument, birthday's and balloons and one I'm more apt to understand than anything deeper.
Mind, "Three Women" is also about birthday's (for two of the three).
OK, here we go...
Three Women
I feel that "Three Women " is a more solidly consistent and original performance, sustained at a high level throughout. "Poem for a Birthday", while it's so sttrong in some parts, is still an internship in the sense that some parts are very imitative of its influences.
Balloons
It's my feeling that, while "Rabbit Catcher" is a strong and intensely realized piece, "Balloons" is more 'outer- directed', if I can use that term, and less centered on the self as victim. I want to give Plath credit for, in the darkest days of her life, reaching out to see the world through her children, even if the conclusion is sort of melancholy, inasmuch as it involves the bursting of illusions. The child remains, seeing the world as it is and not through the rose-colored glasses of the balloon.
Having said that...I appreciate this opportunity to go back over the poems, reaffirming once again how varied and extraordinary these poems are. Whatever state of mind Plath was in when she wrote, she held nothing back. She was the Janis Joplin of poets. Even while speaking in images and metaphors, she spoke directly to the reader in ways that anyone can relate to. That's why her work is as widely read as it is. It seems to me that, when Harold Bloom says, by way of being condescending towards her work, that Plath "wrote poetry for people who don't read poetry", that actually amounted to a great compliment. I could hope for nothing less to be said about my own work...that it would appeal to people who are not otherwise attracted to poetry for one reason or another. If one's work can get those people interested in reading poetry, as Plath has...what a great accomplishment that is!
--Jim Long
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