Hi there! I 've started reading Sylvia Plath's poetry and it touches me more and more.Does anyone else shares this feeling? I have also read a few poems by Auden.I liked them too.This is my first contact with american and british poetry.I am greek and I was avoiding reading the original (althought I adore poetry) by fear that I wouldn't understand the language.I still need a dictionnary but I understand Plath's poetry and I really enjoy it.Would anyone like to suggest me some poets similar to Plath?

If you haven't read any Emily Dickinson yet, I highly recommend it.

Les

"Similar to Plath"? No, sui generis. Auden influenced many poets: Anthony Hecht, Philip Larkin, Peter Porter, A.D.Hope, Roy and John Fuller. He was influenced by Hardy, kipling, Yeats, Edward Thomas...It might be interesting to look at poets influenced by Greek verse, especially the Greek anthology or Homer: Landor, Housman, Donne, Pope, Milton all come to mind.

Thank you both for your answers.

Have you read Plath's novel "The Bell Jar"? I absolutely loved it! It is relatively easy to read. I suggest you give it a try. Also, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Sara Teasdale.

Thank you for the advice.No, I haven't read it, I shall.This morning I received Plath's Collected Poems which I had ordered.This book contains many of her poems but there's missing a poem I want.It's called ''Mad girl's love song''.Could this be possibly contained in the volume ''The Colossus and Other Poems'' or anywhere else? Does anyone happen to know? B.t.w. I found some informations about Emily Dickinson at the www.neuroticpoets.com/ If you are interested, it is a very good site.Contains many informations about: Byron, Shelley, Poe, Rossetti, Dickinson, Oscar Wilde, Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath.A page concerning Jim Morrison is about to be added.

Oh, and Edith Sitwell. Also, I have not read it, but want to , Sylvia's husband Ted Hughes, who is also a famous poet and the two were seperated at the time of her death due to his infidelity, but seveal years after her suicide he published a book of poems about her. I think it is called "Birthday Letters". I would love to hear if anyone has read it.

Yes, it was fascinating. I think also that Anne Stevenson has written an interesting biography of Plath. In addition there is a volume of her letters,edited by her mother, called 'Letters Home'.

Here you go:

Mad Girl's Love Song


I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)



--Sylvia Plath

She takes some liberties with the villanelle's two-rhymes-only requirement, but it works well enough, as a statement of the mad girl's solipsism.

Thank you -Les-