The prompt today is to write a poem inspired by a Sylvia Plath poem. Below the photo is the poem I wrote. The Plath poem I chose that inspired it is given below my poem.
The Wall
I put my hand against the raw stone of the wall
and I can feel it siphoning molecules.
There is a tingling sensation
as they flow out of me.
I try to send some extrasensory
particles along with them
to communicate to me
where they go
and what they encounter there,
but I know that it is futile.
I cannot follow
where these lost parts of me go––
these thoughts, wishes,
aspirations
that I surrender to the wall.
It is not by choice, you know,
that I sit here facing what
has been leached out of my life.
I go on living what life I can,
knowing that in time
all of me will finally
flow into the wall.
I’ve lost so much ambition to it—
and hope and curiosity.
So much of what has kept me engaged in life
has already gone into that gray world
where I cannot yet follow.
Now I sit here, facing it,
acknowledging my failure
as well as the wall’s exclusivity.
Only my shadow
cast against it
reminds me that
somewhere behind me
there is a sun.
.
.
Apprehensions
— by Sylvia Plath
There is this white wall, above which the sky creates itself —
Infinite, green, utterly untouchable.
Angels swim in it, and the stars, in indifference also.
They are my medium.
The sun dissolves on this wall, bleeding its lights.
A grey 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 world,
There is only sourness.
This red wall winces continually:
A red fist, opening and closing,
Two grey, papery bags —
This is what i am made of, this, and a terror
Of being wheeled off under crosses and rain of pieties.
On a black wall, unidentifiable birds
Swivel their heads and cry.
There is no talk of immorality among these!
Cold blanks approach us:
They move in a hurry.
Women our age should NOT read Sylvia Plath. Seriously, she is suicide alley for the elderly women of any generation.
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I agree. NaPoWriMo made me do it.
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I like your poem but I know not much of Sylvia Plath and have never been reading her, that’s why this challenge hit me on the head.
We take that gasp of air, though, that’s for sure. That’s why I turned my poem inside out or better Sylvain Plathless did it. 😀
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Interesting, our different responses (I chose the same poem). This exercise really illustrates how poetry is subjective.
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Like seeing Sylvia Plath’s walls with new eyes. Well done.
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Good one, Judy. Interesting that you chose a non-rhyming poem for this one. Plath’s such a consummate rhymer in much of her poetry. (I stuffed in a few in my poem which you can see here: http://purplemountainpoems.blogspot.ca/2018/04/day-29-never-name-anything-after.html)
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Your wall sounds so much more pleasanter than Sylvia Plath’s. I did mine on Nick and the Candlestick.
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