Hysteria: Visiting Plath's 'Ariel' for NaPoWriMo

Hello, everyone! From the title, this might not sound like the usual content I cover, but I can connect it to riot grrrl, I promise! For those who don’t know, April is National Poetry Month, and each year, poets across the internet embark on a challenge aptly named NaPoWriMo, to which you are encouraged to write a poem each day of April, often with optional prompts. I know a lot of people who read Hysteria don’t know much about me (Mila), but I like to consider myself a well-accomplished poet! I have been writing for a very long time now, and poetry is the first thing I bring up whenever I’m asked about my hobbies or aspirations. This month, I’d like to celebrate my favorite poetry collection, Ariel by Sylvia Plath, especially because last month marked its 60th anniversary.

[taken from the poetry foundation]

Ariel by Sylvia Plath is not only a classic example of confessional poetry but also had a predominant influence on musicians like Kat Bjelland in the early nineties; it’s also one of my favorite poetry collections. On today’s blog, I’m going to talk about the stand-out poems on Ariel, along with citing references to the book from bands like Babes in Toyland, Hole, and Bikini Kill. Before I do that, though, I want to note that Plath is unfortunately most recognized from her dramatic suicide attempts and later death. She was a very mentally ill woman and often discussed that in her poetry, so if you think you are going to be sensitive to these kinds of topics, I kindly suggest you hop over to another one of my blog posts! Another thing I want to make very clear: Sylvia Plath held many racist ideologies that I obviously don’t condone or endorse. I think it’s very important to acknowledge how flawed her politics were. While she did play a role in the confessional poetry movement and promoted feminist ideologies, she preached a liberal/white feminism that was exclusionary of other marginalized groups, such as black or queer individuals. The poem Ariel, which reflects the name of the book itself, uses a derogatory racial slur in it, which should be an indicator of how Plath viewed racism: a trivial matter, to which its victims were at her disposal. I want to appreciate her work, ultimately, but that cannot be done without understanding its flaws. None of the work I read will be particularly geared towards racial issues, but if you feel uncomfortable, I totally understand if you wanna sit this one out.

Now, let’s go ahead and look at some excerpts of my favorite poems in this gosh dang book.

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Thalidomide

“Your dark

Amputations crawl and appall—

Spidery, unsafe.

What glove

What leatheriness

Has protected

Me from that shadow—” (Plath, 9)

I find Plath’s writing absolutely beautiful, and I believe all of her pieces are beautiful, even if she doesn’t feel the need to include heavy subject matter. She reflects upon motherhood in this piece. Thalidomide is a drug that was often prescribed in the 50s to pregnant women to discourage morning sickness and sometimes as a sedative. The poem has a sleepy, creepy quality that must be reminiscent of what it feels like to be on thalidomide.

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Lady Lazarus

“And I a smiling woman.

I am only thirty.

And like the cat I have nine times to die.” (Plath, 14)

I consider “Lady Lazarus” to be Sylvia Plath’s most impressive work; it reads like one giant examination of patriarchy and objectification, suicide, religion, ancestry, femininity, and beauty standards.

“Herr God, Herr Lucifer

Beware

Beware.

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair

And I eat men like air. (Plath, 17)

That being said, this is also one of my favorites. This poem is widely acclaimed for a reason, so I highly suggest you read the full piece. The mind reinvents it after every reread. To my understanding, Sylvia Plath, at least these days, is somewhat representative of the “sad girl” poetry initiative. White girls across the United States use her as a figurehead who is representative of isolation, (absence of) youth, depression, suicide, body image, and mental illness, among other personal issues. It’s important to remember that Plath gained popularity due to her taboo and controversial writing subjects—keep in mind that at the time she started writing, it was heavily discouraged to speak out about patriarchal standards or mental illness. What I’m getting at is, don’t let yourself think that you have to “suffer for your art.” As Bikini Kill writes in Bloody Ice Cream, “The Sylvia Plath story / Is told to girls who write / They want us to think that to be a girl poet / Means you have to die.” Sexton, Woolf, Plath, etc., have suffered similar demises and were all written off as mad women, hysterical, nonsensical. It irks me so much when they are referred to as “sad girl” poets in a serious manner, because they had genuine mental health issues and were actually very defiant women! They used their illness as an opportunity for honesty, nonconformance, and rebellion; that’s why artists like Plath have had such an impact on riot grrrl and kinderwhore. The last thing I want people to do is reduce their toils and efforts to Tumblr poetry. Not on my blog post, no thank you.

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Ariel

“Black sweet blood mouthfuls,

Shadows.” (Plath, 33)

“The dew that flies

Suicidal, at one with the drive

Into the red

Eye, the cauldron of morning.” (Plath, 34)

Ariel, the collection, is actually named after the poem which appears halfway into the book. It has been referenced to death, such as in the song Good Sister, Bad Sister by Hole, where Courtney sings, “You're choking on big black bloody mouthfuls of it.” The song is famously about her feud/relationship with Babes in Toyland frontwoman Kat Bjelland; it’s full of rivalry and grotesque imagery, a true contrast to the inherent precision of the original piece. In the poem, however, Plath references the eyes of her beloved horse Ariel. They are dark and almost void-like, resembling blackberries with a bloody juice when squashed. Courtney wasn’t the only one who referenced the poem, though, because Kat wrote a piece called Ariel for their album Nemesisters (1995). I think this is one of their best works; it maintains the precision and eeriness of the original poem while staying true to the grungy, amateur Babes sound. She famously writes, “You're older than you look / Cracked eyes, black as soot,” alluding to the horse thing Plath has going on, but also references “Lady Lazarus” from earlier: “Will you rise? / Can you see the velvet skies / When you rise?” The poem is clearly a masterpiece and produces other amazing pieces of work as a result.

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Wintering

“Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas

Succeed in banking their fires

To enter another year?

What will they taste of, the Christmas roses?

The bees are flying. They taste the spring.” (Plath, 90)

It feels almost ironic that the final poem in Ariel maintains such a positive, hopeful tone. Perhaps it gives a false impression of stability, of acceptance. Bees are a common trope in Plath's work, especially in this collection; she mentions the bugs in “The Bee Meeting,” The Arrival of the Bee Box,” and "Stings,” among many others. Other images recur in her work, such as flowers, the concept of motherhood, and coldness. The reason this poem feels so ironic is that Ariel was her last collection of poetry published, albeit against her will, after she committed suicide. The original book was heavily edited and redacted by her husband, Ted Hughes, who infamously physically and emotionally abused Plath throughout the course of their relationship. It’s hard to tell whether “The bees are flying. They taste the spring.” feels emblematic of Plath losing her battle with depression or of her finding solace in writing, beekeeping, and motherhood. In short, something has changed, which could either mean something horrible or terrific.

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I hope you all liked this blog post and enjoyed reading a little bit of Plath. I'm quoting everything from Ariel - The Restored Edition, which actually includes a foreword by her daughter, Frieda Hughes, that's pretty interesting, as well as some drafts of poems in Ariel, which is even more interesting. Also, I HELLA rebuke Ted Hughes, please stay away from me. Goodbye, everyone, and sorry for the late episode. See you next Tuesday at 12pm!

See ya,

Mila