Today’s poem was part of a special launch schedule during National Poetry Month from April 1—30, 2024. I posted a new poem daily for 17 days and then got knocked off schedule because…I moved! This challenge restarted on May 1 and continues for the 13 days I missed. The final summary of all poems will be sent to all subscribers on May 24 and otherwise can be viewed for free in the archives here. Thank you for being here!
“MARVELLING WITH SYLVIA”
I am reading Ariel for the first time unsure of what proximity will do to me, after all, after the Bell Jar figs have become my least favourite fruit, a sand-grasping terror going down sugared and spindly, a Marvel multiverse metaphor, cinematic masterpiece of parallel proportion. Simply swap superpeople with woman, hero’s journey with escape route, archetype for human. So every day, scissorless I snip, some hand of an unknown god, pruning possibilities before they scab over to stop the profuse bleeding of spilt stars. Meanwhile, tulips churn in the fields beside my bones.
P.S.
I read The Bell Jar for the first time last year and have been educating myself in the literary legacy of Sylvia Plath since. I’ve been concepting this idea in my mind, of the connection between Sylvia’s fig analogy and this generation’s multiverse obsession, something I’ve been wanting to write for months on my other Substack,
. But after moving and getting thrown off of my usual content production schedule, I had to find my way back in. I had to recalibrate and reshape my goals (maybe not had to, more like had the opportunity to), which left this essay idea out in the dust. Thus, this poem will suffice for now.