Notes to Murder

Notes to Murder

“how can
I accuse
Ted Hughes
of what the entire British and American
literary and critical establishment
has been at great lengths to deny
without ever saying it in so many words, of course,
the murder of Sylvia Plath”
—Robin Morgan, Arraignment,
Monster, New York: Random House
1970; reprinted in Upstairs in the
Garden: Poems Selected and New,
New York: W. W. Norton, 1990

“Then Olwyn asked me:
‘Do you want to be a murderer?’
I looked at her, stunned.
Do you want to be a murderer?
she asked again.”
—Judith Kroll, Chapters in a
Mythology: The Poetry of
Sylvia Plath

“He reminded me of Heathcliff—
another Yorkshireman—big-boned
and brooding, with dark hair flopping
forward over his craggy face,
watchful eyes and an unexpectedly
witty mouth. He was a man who
seemed to carry his own climate
with him, to create his own
atmosphere—and in those days
that atmosphere was dark
and dangerous”
—Al Alvarez, Stevenson,
Bitter Fame, 189

“On Saturday evening Sylvia
put on her blue and silver dress
and went out. She didn’t say
where she where she was going
or whom she hoped or intended
to meet. Whatever had happened
the night before, whomever she
had seen, whatever had been
said, had resolved something for
her. She seemed invigorated,
mildly elated, she had things to
do, she said, all of the night.”
—Jillian Becker, Giving Up:
The Last Days of Sylvia Plath,
New York, St. Martin’s Press,
2003, page 57

“Fate was a big theme with both
Hughes and Sylvia. Both of them
Believed that doing violence
To reason released intuitive
creativeness.” —Jillian Becker,
Giving Up: The Last Days of
Sylvia Plath, New York, St.
Martin’s Press, 2003, page 58

“In 1998 Hughes’s sister Olwyn
introduced me to Ann Stevenson
the Plath biographer semiauthorized
by Hughes. When, in Olwyn’s
presence, I told Stevenson what
Hughes had said at Sylvia’s
funeral—that “everybody hated
her”—Olwyn stopped me. “You
can’t put that in,” she shot at
Stevenson. In the end nothing
I related about the funeral
appeared in Stevenson’s
book Bitter Fame”
—Jillian Becker, Giving Up:
The Last Days of Sylvia Plath,
New York, St. Martin’s Press,
2003, page 56

“In correspondence with the
Hughes’s, [The Haunting of
Sylvia Plath] was called “evil.”
Its publisher was told it would
not appear. I was asked to
remove my reading of ‘The
Rabbit Catcher’, and when I
refused, I was told by Hughes
that speculation of the kind
I was seen as engaging in
about Plath’s sexual identity
would in some countries be
‘grounds for homicide’.
—Jacqueline Rose, Preface,
The Haunting of Sylvia Plath,
Cambridge: Harvard, 1992 xi

Cleaving Ariel

Nike of Samothrace Louvre

ARIEL—
Sylvia Plath Version

“It was a place
of force…”
—Sylvia Plath,
Ariel

I was sick—of him
By then—the malignity
Of his great—male beauty
Had lost its—extravagance
His love—more like torture

His fist—wrapping around
My throat—gagging me
With my hair—blowing in
The sea-cliff—wind above
An oil-slick—spreading below

His tall dark—handsome
Face no longer—blinding me
With Mytholmroyd—grace
And magic—now he was
Just one big fat—Zero

There was—only one place
Left to go—back to America
A teaching job—at Smith
A couple of kids—some grief
Leaving behind—Yeats etc.

I was sick—of Ted Hughes
My love life—narrowed
Down to a—blinking red
Empty—lonely goodbye
Motel—vacancy sign

I felt—a still busyness
Deep inside me—growing
A different kind—of poetry
Different than—Lowell
More blunt—than Sexton

Suddenly—I was Ariel
My Tempest—was over
My Other—cocky Caliban
Could keep—England
Old Island—of shipwrecks

I’d give—another reading
Another BBC—bombshell
Not just Daddy—but the
Whole goddamned—thing
ARIEL—broadcast LIVE!!!

(then a knock at the door….)

Cleaving Mytholmroyd

The Haunting of Sylvia Plath

I’ve got a leaning tower of Pisa stack of Plath bios on my nightstand. I’ve pretty much read all of them—the last one being Janet Malcolm’s The Silent Woman. She ends her bio with some intriguing insights about Jacqueline Rose’s The Haunting of Sylvia Plath. The only one I haven’t read yet. Rose’s “textual entity” approach to all the Sylvia Plath bios—seems so calm and balanced to me. Here is a brief paragraph—describing her approach to biography:

“This is a book which analyses the poet's work, in part by looking at the passionate public response that it arouses - in other words, it takes the pathology often assumed to be at the heart of Plath and projects it back on to the reader. In simple terms: if Plath is mad, who are we who love her so passionately? What do we have invested in our understanding of Plath's work?”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/jan/04/highereducation.academicexperts

I’ve asked myself the same question? Why have I read all of Plath’s poetry and Lit Crit? Her journals and novels? Why have so many biographies come out—and still are being published? What’s makes Ariel so important? How deep does the dark side of Ted Hughes go? Is there something uncanny—about their Ouija Board dialogs? Is there something mythological—about Mytholmryod?

Cleaving the Bees

Maggie Taylor, "Girl in a Bee Dress"

Girl in a Bee Dress

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200404/nehring

Very interesting Atlantic essay/review. Almost as interesting as the Middlebrook bio—Her Husband: Hughes and Plath: Their Marriage. Many of the literary biographies are shifting their attention to Ted Hughes: the other side of the coin. A bright silver dollar on one side—a dirty penny on the other.

The Hughes Estate—rich, powerful, lawyers, publishers, friends and relatives. No wonder it’s taken so long—for a more reliable narrative to emerge from the Sylvia Plath closet. At least it’s not as bad, I suppose, as Lord Byron or the Shelley Esate?

So many versions of the Domesticated Goddess—so little time. And yet there’s plenty of time—isn’t there? Janet Malcolm’s The Silent Woman—actually it’s more about Jane Malcolm than Sylvia Plath. How she deconstructs the art of biography—from Bitter Fame to all the other ones. Seeing herself—as a “textual entity” amidst all the other players in the ongoing “performance art” of Sylvia Plath. Jacqueline Rose in The Haunting of Sylvia Plath calls it post-structuralism—others call it freeing the playing field. Making all POV players equal—and democratically embedded in ongoing storytelling.

I tend to see biography now as Nonfiction Novels—like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces. So that the deluge of Plath biographies—well, they’re actually each one a sort of unique nonfiction novel approach to writing Sylvia Plath’s life-story.

Why? Because there’s no such thing as an authorial omniscient observer—nor does a reliable narrator exist to convince me that the biographer is any more reliable that Shade in Pale Fire or Humbert Humbert in Lolita. I may fall in love with Zembla Lit and King Kinbote—I may find James Mason more charming than Jeremy Irons—I may prefer Sue Lyon to Dominique Swain. But in the end—Nabokov wins and makes a fool of me.

The same with any writer—like Capote, Plath, Kafka, Nabokov and even what’s his name: James Frey. We suspend belief—to enter Fiction. The same with Biography—we suspend belief because we believe in the biographer. You know, like Talese and Oprah did—or didn’t do; whichever you believe when you don’t believe anymore.

Truman Capote—more stylish than most. He knew on the Santa Fe Super Chief—traveling into the American Wild West with Harper Lee. He knew he needed Harper Lee—as his Madam Heurtebise to guide him through the liquid mirror into the Orphée Land of the Dead. And what, my dear, could be deader than Western Kansas—some lonely railroad tracks, some tall white Greek grain elevators, lots of flatness and silence from horizon to horizon.

After Harper Lee got him going—into the good graces of the conservative Republican wheat-farmers and stoic locals with raised-eyebrows—can you imagine cosmopolitan chatty campy Capote stuck for a couple of years in some dumpy motel room in Garden City? Writing his “nonfiction novel”—even before Perry Smith and Dick Hickock showed up. The dead Clutter family? A tragic headline—in The New York Times. What made Capote go Bingo—and give Dick Shawn of The New Yorker a call? Hmmmm?

Naturally, a mere biography wasn’t good enough for Truman Capote—he wanted another best seller. And another movie. Asking a trick after sex the next morning—Capote asked the boy-toy where he’d like to have breakfast. To Capote’s exquisite amazement—the young hopelessly dumb naïve hustler said he’d like have breakfast at Tiffany’s!!! That’s how flashes of intuition—get things going in the mind of a writer. Purely chance—often spoken from the mouths of babes. Preferably Boss Cupids—if you know what I mean?

To invent a new literary genre—isn’t an easy thing to do. But it can be done—just look at Sylvia Plath’s Ariel. One little thin book—everything changed. Even a book tainted with abridgement—and a jealous husband’s guilt, rage & adultery. Isn’t that how it works—a poetic paradigm shift? It’s more like a Dark Star—imploding on itself. A Super Bitch Nova like Plath—suddenly turning into a Brilliant Black Hole? Sucking everything—even light and gravity—down into Heart of Darkness?

How to describe—what Plath was working with? Janet Malcolm in Silent Woman—well, to me she seems to be imitating Capote’s nonfiction novel style. But she and Jacqueline Rose call it “post-structuralism”—with a little dash of de rigeur deconstructive commentary. She alludes to herself and others—Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, the families and poets, even her fellow biographers—as “textual entities” embedded in the writing of Plath’s life-story.

Thus, Janet Malcolm is more self-conscious than—Anne Stevenson in Bitter Fame. The tiresome travails—the Estate put that poor woman through. The same with many of the other biographers—molding themselves to the politically correct views of TPTB. Much of what’s fascinating about Silent Woman—is how the art of biography changes over time. Getting more realistic—is that what I mean by nonfiction novel? More real—by being more fictional? By being skeptical—about reliable narrators and omniscient “textual entities”?

Perhaps—but time moves on. Layer after layer—the Ariel story concatenates itself like a pearl over some tiny irritation. Two movie versions of In Cold Blood plus two Capote bio-flicks—and what do you get? An “intertextual entity"—worthy of driving your palimpsest sweaty palms simply mad.

The same with the Plath cottage-industry—which shows no hint of abating only accelerating. One lousy movie so far—but there will be more. I predict one about Ted Hughes—called The Killer (2010). Based on a pirated copy—of Plath’s Secret Journal… Did I say that? Surely not—after all I’m simply another literary entity. The lowest of the low—a mere poet.

Cleaving Ted Hughes

Ted Hughes

Swastika Night

“A man in black with
a Mien Kampf look”
—Sylvia Plath, Daddy

Poetry—isn’t possible
After Auschwitz—they say
But poets—write anyway

Poetry—doesn’t exist
After the Holocaust—they say
Yet holocausts—continue

The ovens—burn constantly
How innovative—we don’t
Need faggots—to burn anymore

Words—don’t exist
Except when—burning
Trash—into ash

Smoke stacks—suck up
Bodies—spewing killer skies
Over—the planet

No poetry—is possible
After Auschwitz—they say
Everything—just dies

How can we—even write
One lousy line—the same
With Sylvia—or Ariel

What’s wrong—with Ted?
Was he—a closet Nazi?
Clicking his—leather boots?

Poets—live in darkness
But what’s new—my dear?
Always—the Swastika Night.

The Killer

Ted Hughes

The Killer

“Wolves are singing in
the forest for two…”
—Ted Hughes.
“Life After Death,”
Birthday Letters

Ted closed—the front door
Of 23 Fitzroy Road—behind him
Leaving the hissing—death
The gas in the oven—Sylvia’s
Head on a towel—already
Dead—strangled to death
By his strong—killer hands

Standing in the dark—listening
To the howling wolves—in the park
The cold still night—he killed her
The snow—there on Fitzroy Road
The pallor of the corpse—upstairs
Her dead brown eyes—upturned
Looking at her—angel of death

The wolves—of Regency Park
Howling—in their zoo cages
He stands in the dark—death
Triggering—something in him
The killer instinct—women
Finding him irresistible—snaring
Them—when they’re vulnerable

Eerie—the wolfish coincidences
The coroner’s—calm inquest
Lupercal—ancient Roman
Fertility festival—she-wolf
Who suckled—Romulus & Remus
In the grotto—their London flat
Palatine Hill—haunted by Yeats

Pushing Sylvia—over the edge
So easy—the same with Assia
Corpses of his—two Lovers
And a child—he never wanted
Ominous signs—Yorkshire Ripper!!!
Ted Hughes—Killer Poet Laureate!!!
The Queen’s Heavy—Royal Thug!!!

The blood-jet—of British poetry
The Difficulties—of a Bridegroom
Getting off on—strangled screams
Wounded bunnies—dying rabbits
Guilty pleasures—of killing your
Wife & mistress—snuff-movie orgasm
Ted’s miserable marriage—sexual rages

Sylvia Plath—lusting after him
Predatory Wolfman—dangerous
Biting him on the cheek—bloody
Avid for—his Mytholmroyd manhood
Wanting finally—a real hunk to love
Primitive poet—young male animal
Wanting him—deep inside her

Sylvia & Assia—snared by him
The panther’s tread—up the stairs
Slouching Panther—afterwards
Heptonstall Cemetery—his lovers
Tossed into underground—trash
Faking it as usual—poor husband
His ersatz—fake shamanic journey

Building his mythology—a scam
On Orphée—his wife down in Dis
While upstairs—in the flat’s kitchen
Waiting for morning—the corpse
Already dead—murder most foul
Done in by—a sneaky lupine creep
Stinking rotting—in folk-tale time
Sylvia’s future books—down the drain

Ariel—her supreme achievement
Stolen from her—by her killer husband
The Usurpation—of Sylvia Plath
Her Book—his jealous Narratives
Dishing his critics—with Birthday Letters
His typical vain—pervasive tactic
Placidly “unwriting”—what Sylvia says

Ted Hughes—Paparazzo Sniper
Skanky stand-in for—Bully Big Daddy
Ten times worse—than crummy Otto
Psychodramatizing—himself proudly
Ham-handed—Yorkshire Bad Boy
Pouty paraphrasing—Sylvia’s words
Full of guilt—still slashing out at her!!!

The Wolfman—gnawing on her bones
Resenting his dead wife—snarling at
Anybody getting too close—the Murder
Scene off-limits—Hughes full of self-pity
Score-settling viper—like what’s-her-name
Always getting in—the Last Word
Making a profit—off Sylvia’s voice

No time for daffodils—kids
Dirty diapers—smell of baby shit
Ted’s grim celebrity—pushing it
Ahead of himself—his Sisyphus cock
Victimizing himself—blaming Sylvia
Her faux-suicide—kicking the victim
Rather than—admit wild bloody rage

Poor mute hostile—Yorkshire boy
Killer thug—of the moody moors
Eroticizing death—those little deaths
How they excited him—Sylvia caught
In the Snare—finding out his Secret
The Sanctity—of his Traplines desecrated
How dare Sylvia—Violate his Temple!!!

The two of them—out on the moors
Sylvia suddenly knowing—the Awful Truth
Horrified—finding more than just snares
Tearing them up—knowing she’d be next
Mytholmroyd—Mythic Malignity of Death
Ruling her husband—The Rabbit Killer
The Woman Killer—The Yorkshire Ripper!!!!

Feeling the same—tight constriction
That would kill her—like the rabbits
Horror too deep—to uproot or ignore
Sylvia’s mind—Slaughter House panic
Feeling Ted’s fingers—squeezing tight
Dying to hear—her squelched screams
Grabbing her—as she fled from him

This is the way—Murder works
Lies, lies—then grief and death
His tight hands—around her neck
His narrow wolfish eyes—hunter enraged
His Face—no longer her husband’s Face
Strangling her to death—in a Thicket
The ocean below—the pounding surf

No longer—Husband and Wife
Tightening fingers—around her neck
She was Prey—and Ted the Hunter
Each stifled breath—a little death
That’s what excited him—making love
Lycanthropic sex—turning her blue
Suffocating her—Lust and Anger!!!

A full-moon—down in the reeds
By the cliffs—breakers down below
Sylvia fainting—into Negro darkness
Where shadows lurk—knuckles pop
His huge shoulders—corduroy coat
Two slanted—evil Werewolf eyes
A Lon Chaney Jr—horror movie!!!

At the last moment—Sylvia bit him
On his St. Botolph’s—lover’s cheek
Startling him—probably saving her life
Dybbuk girl—doppelganger of death
Fleeing for the parked car—trying to
Escape the Hunter—once her husband
Who loved death—better than sex

Jumping into the car—scared to death
Pushing down hard—on the accelerator
Even tho—the Killer banged his way in
Thru the window—dangling there
Reaching for her—her sexual maniac
Husband—homicidal English poet
Shouting at her—as they drove off

Night-Ride Ariel—getting her anyway
Disguising her murder—as suicide
Erasing her Voice—stealing her words
Out of her mouth—out of her Life
Vile ventriloquist—Palimpsest pimp
Bleeding her dry—publishing her work
Leaking out tidbits—plus his inane lit crit

Ariel—the Feminist cult book
He subverted it—her original Text
Not until Collected Poems—later on
Pulitzer Prize 1982—telling the truth
Re-establishing—Sylvia’s reputation
Ted forced into letting—her Craft
The Ariel Narrative—her Muse
Come back alive—once again

The life—of any great poet
Unlike most—people’s lives
Means only—one thing when
One says—“the Literary Life”
The dialogic imagination—at work
Its occult intertextualities—writing
Her Life—thru her poetry

Poetry—exquisitely Ariel-esque
More confessional—than Sexton
Echoing—sad Robert Lowell
Evil-eyed—like Adrienne Rich
Beyond Elizabeth Bishop’s—closetry
Like Roethke’s—troubling detritus
Kafka-esque tears—beyond Yeats

Eerie Dialogs—with Ouija Boards
Transmitting—transmuting herself
Otherworldly—her maturing poetry
Streamlining it—transgressing it
Beyond—New Criticism constipation
Daring to mention—other Holocausts
Women, Lesbos—even LGBT poetics

Where is Sylvia’s—Voice now?
Now that her Killer—is deceased?
Now that the Poet Laureate—is dead?
What about—the secret Ted Hughes?
Do murderers go—guiltless into Night?
Do Yorkshire Rippers—gently sleep?
Does it take an Ouija Board—to speak?

Notes on The Killer

Ted Hughes

Notes on "The Killer"

“Energy is created by
every activity that resembles
the pursuit of quarry.”
—Ted Hughes,
Diane Middlebrook, Her Husband:
Hughes and Plath—A Marriage

“I feel that my poems are obscure,
I give the secret away without giving
it. People are so dumb they do not
know I’ve given the secret away.”
—Ted Hughes,
Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev, Lover
of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath’s
Rival and Ted Hughes’s Doomed Love

“He was a real hunter. The moment
I drew away from him and became
independent, I was more attractive
in his eyes, and he chased me and
pleaded that I could come back. It
was the same with Assia: when she
tried to break away and was out of
his reach, he became motivated. But
when they were together, he did
terrible tings. I feared I would end
up like her, and resisted his temptations.
Her terrible suicide saved my life.”
—Brenda Hedden,
Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev, Lover
of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath’s
Rival and Ted Hughes’s Doomed Love

“I was the only woman
who ever walked away from him.
You can have no idea of what it
was like to be the focus of his
love. But Hughes was an ambitious
man, and he knew that his reputation
couldn’t survive the scandal of
divorce. He just wanted things to
go on as they were between us.
But I was broody. So in 1980 I
moved my business to New York.”
—Emma Tennant,
Diane Middlebrook, Her Husband:
Hughes and Plath—A Marriage

“On one of their free evenings, Peter
Porter suggested that they attend the
Israeli Philharmonic performance of
Fauré’s Requium, while Ted proposed
Euripides’ Bacchai in Hebrew at the
Kameri Theater. “He had guaranteed
that real blood (animal) would grace
the staging,” commented Porter.
—Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev, Lover
of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath’s
Rival and Ted Hughes’s Doomed Love

“He was mesmerized when the tour
guide showed them the rock where
Abraham went to sacrifice his only
son Isaac: it “must be the most
electrical place on earth.”
—Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev, Lover
of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath’s
Rival and Ted Hughes’s Doomed Love

“Remembering the Dome of the Rock,"
he said, “It’s the most sacred and
important place, where rites were
probably performed, a place of
shamans, and visionaries. In any
culture, mountaintops are very
sacred and a cave on a mountaintop
is more sacred than anything.”
—Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev, Lover
of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath’s
Rival and Ted Hughes’s Doomed Love

“But like a Russian doll, the truth was
revealed layer after layer. In his study
of suicide, The Savage God, Al Alvarez
described Plath’s renewed drive to write
as “demonic possession,” which could
have been the reason why she and Ted
temporarily parted. However, he made
no mention of the adultery, even though
he was a close witness to Ted’s affair
with Assia.”
—Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev, Lover
of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath’s
Rival and Ted Hughes’s Doomed Love

Cleaving Rauschenberg / Johns

Rauschenberg—Jasper Johns
Rauschenberg—Jasper Johns
Rauschenberg—Jasper Johns
Rauschenberg—Jasper Johns
Rauschenberg—Jasper Johns

Cleaving Larkin

Letter to Andrew Motion
15 November 1981

here is the—plath review
i see her—as a kind of
hammer film poet—and
i don’t suppose—i shall open
her book—again

—Philip Larkin, Selected Letters
of Philip Larkin, (1940-1982),
ed. Anthony Thwaite, London:
Faber and Faber, 1992

Cleaving Larkin

Bitter Poet Laureate
—for Philip Larkin

the man—madam thatcher
picked for—next poet laureate
before the choice—of ted hughes
was a bitter—cynical man

his name—philip larkin
giving the reader—a thrill
your childhood—your wife
your crummy marriage—things like
what you do in bed—how you screw

stop looking blue—it’s too late
give me a couple—of generations
you’ll look—just grand
I’ll write—the crummy reviews
and the blurbs—on the jacket

Cleaving Larkin

This Be The Verse
—Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Notes:

after all the—ruckus
and riggermarole—over
plath’s crummy—marriage
and desultory—bildungsroman
with big daddy—oh so mean
surrounded by—moon women
postmodern—feminist critics
and ogling voyeurs—like me
yawn—i find this poem
by philip larkin—so refreshing
so apropos—such a luxury
to put—sylvia path the goddess
smith college—mademoiselle
her hoity-toity—bildungsroman
her high-strung—marriage and
all that—nervous queen bee stuff

Cleaving Larkin

Letter to Kingsley Amis
3 January 1982

as for plath—you should realize
that i don’t read—any new books
except the ones—i’m sent to review
i’ve reviewed s.p.—for poetry review
coerced by my chum—andrew motion
saying more or less—that she thought
madness would pay—found she could
and then fell—face down into it
of course—one doesn’t know
how much—of a life
ted led her—or she him
nasty to think—WE SHANT EVER KNOW
because by the time—ted dies
we shall be—yaaaaghgh leggt
of course—she could write
in a yankish way—heavily aided
by roget’s thesaurus—like dylan
but until sheg shag—got onto
the barmy stunt—she hadn’t
anything to say […]

—Philip Larkin, Selected Letters
of Philip Larkin, (1940-1982),
ed. Anthony Thwaite, London:
Faber and Faber, 1992

Moon Women

Moon Women
—for Marjorie Perloff, Aurelia Plath,
Mary Ellen Chase, Olive Higgins Prouty,
Anne Sexton and Ruth Beutscher

“your moon was
full of women”
—Ted Hughes,
“Night Ride on Ariel,”
Birthday Poems

too many women—too many alphas
too many moonstruck—eye-sick goddesses

moon-sick—heart-sick women

blood-jet—poetesses

your moon-mother—lunatic
tyrolean moon-goddess—guttural
mourning and blaming—herself
it was always—big daddy she loved

tender whacko—prouty like
glenda the witch—in wizard of oz
click those—magic ruby slippers
you’re a wicked-witch—now, girl

forget Cinderella—forget the coach
you’ve got a cheesy—zeppelin broom to fly
college courses—mary ellen chase
more moon-daughters—lovely lunar spawn

madam beutscher—queen bee
her moon-shop full—of midget
munchkin mind melds—electro
dismemberment—zap moonshine

full moon—mary ellen chase
bug-eyed moon owl—ogling
thru silver nimbus—luna lit
stealing you—from my nest

all your—finicky moon women
dragging you—dead back
across the atlantic—to moonville
sexton green—with jealousy

your toes curled—you skin blue
phases of the moon—mooning you
across your dismal—dead face
giving me the evil eye—to get even

fairy godmother—no tooth fairy
beneath your pillow—ariel sleeps
down there in daddy’s coffin—no past
so mademoiselle perfect—pouty girl

prouty wants you—back again
beutscher—pulls your magic twanger
frog prince otto—his lovely magnetic
gangrene leg—glowing in the dark

you’re so polite—even in death
tiptoeing through—daddy’s beehive
drones making way—as usual
lesbos worker bees—wings abuzz

busy—mary ellen moonbeam
squeezing smith—and cambridge
just right—your petite physique
so hourglass—and chic

no wonder—they all love you
lesbian moon-women—are yours
they took you—under their wings
what other smith coed—so privileged?

they jammed—my wavelength
with guilt—blaming your flight
fatally flawed—on my bluebeard
male ways—another big daddy!!!

the more I ignored—these harpies
the more they flew—their brooms
swooping at night—seeking vengeance
grande dames—marjorie perloff etc.

Notes:

Olive Higgins Prouty

“Author of several best-selling novels, including Stella Dallas and Now, Voyager, had endowed the scholarship Sylvia won at Smith and took a personal interest in Sylvia’s career, although she was subsequently pilloried as Philomenia Guinea in The Bell Jar.”—Edward Butscher, “In Search of Sylvia: An Introduction,” Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1977, 237

Anne Sexton

“It was 1959, another watershed year for modern American poetry, a year in which Lowell, Sexton, Snodgrass (a former pupil of Lowell’s), and Ginsberg utilized very private often humiliating aspects of their own lives to illuminate and revitalize the romantic projections of self initiated by Wordsworth generations earlier. Called “confessionalism” by admirers and detractors alike…with its fictions of self more important than clinical revelations. Sexton’s and Lowell’s greater psychic honesty was decisive in demonstrating the need for Plath to break through their disguises, their remoteness, their ironic Audenesque rationalities…promoting conversational voice and true emotional intensity which her poems lacked.”—Edward Butscher, “In Search of Sylvia: An Introduction,” Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1977, 17

Ruth Beutscher

“When news of Sylva’s breakdown and attempted suicide reached Mr. Prouty, she telegraphed that she wanted to help, soon afterward writing an offer to pay for treatment at McLean Hospital in Belmont. Mrs. Prouty herself had suffered a nervous breakdown many years before, and it had taught her, she said, to value life. She would see to it that Sylvia recovered in the best mental institution in the country. McLean, indeed, is famous in Massachusetts as the hospital where Robert Lowell would retreat during his manic periods and where Anne Sexton would periodically be a patient. Sylvia was there nearly four months before she was cured. Her psychiatrist, Dr. Ruth Beuscher, was a young woman with whom Sylvia established a trustful relationship that lasted the rest of her life. The kind of psychiatric treatment Sylvia Plath received in the 1950s now seems almost as barbaric as the rituals of eighteenth-century Bedlam. The horrific course of electroconvulsive therapy during her breakdown and purgatory of her “cure” affected Sylvia more deeply than anyone understood at the time. It may be that she never really recovered from it, that it changed her personality permanently, stripping her of a psychological skin she could ill afford to lose. Attributable to her ECT is the unseen menace that haunts nearly everything she wrote, her conviction that the world, however benign in appearance, conceals dangerous animosity, directed particularly toward herself.”—Anne Stevenson, Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998, 47

Aurelia Plath

“The mystery deepened. Where lurked the monster, the maternal ogre depreciated in The Bell Jar and poems like “The Disquieting Muses” and “Medusa”? And she was, she was a monster, this sincere Aurelia Plath of Wellesley, a vampire of the unconscious as fatal as Dracula himself, albeit an unwitting creation, another well-intentioned road-paver. With a sort of desperate love, she had drawn her precocious daughter to her bosom like a threatened mother mouse and never let go, feeding her fat, true, but feeding upon her as well.”—Edward Butscher, “In Search of Sylvia: An Introduction,” Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1977, 8

Aurelia Plath

“This is very normal, of course, in a gross surface way, the inevitable giving and getting involved in any close human union, but the intense parent-child matrix does demand much more from the parent in the end, move giving and, ultimately, unconditional surrender. But Mrs. Plath could not comply when it came time for her daughter to assert her own identity, could not release her emotionally, and used the blanket of “love” to disguise her intentions. Hungrily, vicariously, she lived through her daughter, sucking up her life to fill the empty sack of her own dull existence, a fair exchange, so fair, but their crucial symbiotic relationship evolved (through high school and college) into a dangerous anaclitic tie as Sylvia’s world demanded greater and greater perfection: her mother wanted and needed it; her father had always possessed it; she admired and imitated it and him, driving herself to achieve, to achieve what Mrs. Plath had been denied—a gay social life, many ultra-eligible boy pursuers, superior academic standing, recognized creative productions, the American Dream come alive as it only can in the mind and soul of immigrants’ offspring.”—Edward Butscher, “In Search of Sylvia: An Introduction,” Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1977, 8-9

Aurelia Plath

“A Family reunion is a delightfully vicious exercise in caricature… It made clear, I believe, that the configuration behind the art (which I eventually labeled “the bitch goddess”) was a repressed creature, a conscious persona and unconscious reality that would transform method into creative madness to carve out a unique female power myth.”—Edward Butscher, “In Search of Sylvia: An Introduction,” Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1977, 10

Marjorie Perloff

“Marjorie Perloff having relegated Sylvia to the dungeon of “minor” status and others might think Emily Dickinson more worthy of the title (the first major woman poet in American literature) but her constricting, somewhat virginal whimsy prevented her, despite real brilliance, from ever establishing an entire world in her poetry, at least for me.”—Edward Butscher, “In Search of Sylvia: An Introduction,” Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1977, 237

Incest with Big Daddy

Otto Plath

Incest with Big Daddy

“the dark ate at you”
—Ted Hughes

the darkness—ate you up
the bears—the fear of being
eaten alive—the grinding
indifferent pearly-white grizzly
teeth of big daddy—otto plath
big daddy—albatross hanging
around your—pretty little
new england neck

you tried—putting it on page
after page—the way poets do
how he came to you—in dreams
night after night—otto the ogre
your mother—in her bed next door
terrorized by—big daddy too
better you than her—she thought
married to him—all those grotesque
years—half-wife, half-prey

then it was my turn—for the ugly
male juggernaut—his thick Luger
deep inside me—while I gulped
first big daddy’s—panzer tongue
thick as a big sausage—down there
between my—innocent girlish legs
opening up just for you—big daddy
suddenly I was yours—oh! oh! oh!
mummy-daddy!!! it hurts it hurts!!!



then saying nothing—staring at
the ceiling—hearing mummy sob
in the next room—the terror of
daddy’s lips—red & raw & bloody
his bristly sharp—thin moustache
leaving me—black & blue like
some doomed—warsaw ghetto.
forever trying—to escape escape
but not being able—to run & hide!!!

but then it—it occurred to me
after big daddy died—that it all
wasn’t just—big daddy’s fault
the big secret was—my mother
aurelia francis plath—she knew
the awful truth—kept it hidden
her sleeping pills—my escape
they’d find me—dead under
the house—in the basement

rotten as—otto’s gangrene leg
putrid as—aurelia’s silence
the source—of great depression
the cause of—nervous breakdown
the ruin of—my marriage vows
haunted by—the ghost of daddy

closing my bedroom door—locking it
moving in the darkness—slipping
down the crisp—clean white sheets
enjoying his honeymoon—once again
his lips—my sovereign’s signature
my premature—secrétaire d'état
my hot little beehive—all daddy's

Cleaving Snakes

Snakecharmer

“And now nothing
but snakes”
—Sylvia Plath,
“Snakecharmer”

The Caliph—smokes his hookah
His mercenaries—put down their swords
The slaves—relax while the gods play

The magic carpet—is rolled out
Covered with—green writhing snakes
The old man—bows before the crowd

Behind them—mosaics crawl the walls
Calligraphy—neither human nor animal
Crawl up the ancient—palace walls

It’s time for snake-warp—snake-weft
The boy is brought in—with his basket
Out of his Eden navel—Snakedom slides

Snake-scales—cover him from foot to toe
There are no rules—for what happens next
Other than the old man’s flute—warming up

The boy’s eyes are—glazed and hooded
Asiatic Balkanesque—Jail Bait from Bucharest
He yawns—out squirms forked tongues

Soon enough—the pliant tunes of the pipe
Turn him from human—to Slithering Snake
As he readies himself—for Transformation

The huge undulating python—in the basket
Gently removed by—coiled around the youth
Hand around the neck—flickering tongue

There’s no hurry—the Egyptian light
Of a thousand gone years—crawls across
The stone floor—across the Persian carpet

The damp smell of the Nile—moves through
Cairo apartments—young couples become
Part of the world of naked snakes—snakes!!!

The carpet disappears—nothing but eyelids
Opening and closing—up and down the
Tree of Lost Knowledge—in that Garden

The sways and coilings—of the Master
Snakeboy—Bearer of the Forbidden Fruit
Gaia serpent—deep in the reptilian brain

(See how Pan slinks—beneath the wine glass
Snaking his way—across the Ouija Board
Sniffing out the Letters again—all 26 Snakes)

(Ted nods knowingly—Sylvia face to face
With him across the coffee-table—each night
A great frieze, Egyptian—perhaps Greek?)

(Soon the tables and chairs—elbowed out
By the demand for magic—tea-leaves candid
Clairvoyant seizures—predicting Pan the boy)

(What games are—being played with us
The boy of the hour—snakedancing some
Paltry scene—beneath the dark stairs?)

(The Snakecharmer—the Wordmaker
What do we really—know about him?
Wait he moves under glass—Pan is here)

(He starts again—dragging us thru frames
Plumage winnowing—against the moon
Columns of dazzling—Cobra Island jump-cuts)

(Obliteration takes time—shipwrecks get
Dredged up from—burning knotholes in the
Wainscoting—snakes behind the wallpaper…)

(Young gods too proud—to be chauffeurs
Sylvia pampers him—like some sort of
Psychic child—firstborn of our wedding night)

(Ted smirks—a bright young boy indeed
Prone to compose queer poetry—in apt iambics
If prodded by scoldings—by subtle praise)

(The other side—of what we may have known
His shouldering of words—stint of Sisyphus
Pumas in Tibet—Lamas in Zanzibar)

(Ted shrugs—He’s lazy like any adolescent
He needs a beating—now and then to
Quicken his—sluggard’s blood and tongue)

(You waste no time—revoking his manhood
or is the godhead you fear—gaining grace
with each go-between—angelhood session?)

(Why do we always—start out this way?
Beneath the artful glass—what if what he
Claims is true—beyond our cheesy psyches?)

(Don’t be so smart—if he’s god’s mouthpiece
then it’s surely your own genius—moving thru
your own fingertips—spelling sarcasm)

(The fibs contour themselves—across the board
Pan and his fine-sounding syllables—the beat
The gift is yours—the blood-heat of Wordage)

(Wormholes—through your wishful thinking
Pan’s prowess is—your own creation and
You are your own—sole nourisher of power)

(There’s a pause—wordy otherworldly chatting
seizes Sylvia and Ted once again—they smell
the decay—like the undersides of mushrooms)

(Snakes blacken the walls—serpentine shadows
slide through the cracks—in the oak floor
the livingroom breathes—dilating the wallpaper)

(The specter of—Pan the Snakecharmer
running through his—normal book of nerves
and noumenon—his manners slit-eyed obscure)

(Ted—Your hand, Sylvia, it’s cold as ice!!!
Jaysus christ—your eyes are burning dry-ice
Enough of this—unnatural Other’s advice)

(I promised to welter—with contending words
never to forget the labyrinth—or ignore the
manner of the young beast—dancing there)

(But Sylvia—surely you’re not saying you
Believe in some pythoness—breathing in
The gospel truth—fuming crevices tripods?)

(But it’s too late—the livingroom fades
into the usual—unequivocal wordy thicket
Breathing the god’s word—skein of voices)

(Dreams once again—cut solid shapes
through the air—glancing aside the table
and chairs fade into—the magic carpet)

(When the lights go out—Ted and Sylvia
are dreamers dispossessed—may their
counterintuitive decorum—sustain them)

The 59th Bear

The 59th Bear

"He went to Alaska to get away.
Nicky was always a lone wolf."
—Ted Hughes

My brother Gerald—and I went hunting
And fishing—in the Mytholmroyd moors
The Pennine Hills—full of game and trout

The Prehistoric megaliths—so ancient
Stonehenge—and the stone towers
Leaning down—out of the scudding fog

None of that—frightened me
I felt safe fishing and hunting—there
I suppose—I was naïve and innocent

But the sullen moors—of rainy England
Are different than—the wilds of Alaska
And horrible archaic—Yellowstone Park

Maybe it’s the earth—Sylvia said
The vast American—Evil Whatever
This is real evil—she said.

What is it—I kept saying
Something was—sucking us dry
In the indigo night—The Evil Night

It came out—in the darkness
In the canyons—and dark forests
The whole landscape—wore its mask

An ancient evil landscape—terrifying
Not like England—its centuries human
America was Badlands—everywhere

It crawled—into every camp we stayed
Lone trees—near our campsites never
Gave us comfort—everything watched us

A landscape with one idea—Death
It got into the radiator—into the radio
It was a maze—of electrical snakes

Wherever we went—it was the same
Lunar, iron-hearth—ashen landscapes
A secret hidden—in the oxides & firedust

Some solar furnace—ancient explosion?
Something overwhelming—uneasy
Each night—a sea of engulfing nausea

Sylvia and I—we were tired
Vulnerable to the terror—we felt inside
Nervous tension—something was wrong

It was more interested—in her than me
Overloading her—with emergency angst
She was more used to it—death in disguise

It peered down at us—from the sky
When we reached Yellowstone—it was ready
What is it—I kept saying—what is it?

American Indians—would probably know
It’s not just the Earth—it’s really us inside
What’s worse—than doppelganger emptiness?

At this point—Sylvia stopped writing poetry
Because everything—she wrote convinced her
She was prophesying—what would happen

Never marry a psychic poetess—they say
Whatever they may write—over the years
The writing of it—makes it happen

It was the same with Ouija—and Tarot
There was no magic—in the Planchette
Or the Gypsy cards—it was Sylvia’s mind

We got deeper—into the Landscape
Naïve pioneers—had no idea what they
Were getting into—no finesse

Once by a lake—in her bikini
Sylvia delighting—in brilliant sunshine
Only to recoil in horror—an evil threshold

Realizing then—poetry wrote the future
We both lost any interest—in reaching
The core of any—American labyrinth

There was nothing there—except death
I saw her dead face—unmoving & still
I didn’t write it down—but I told her

She said—she had the same feeling
Disembodied—from me now & forever
The name of the beast—was Ariel

The next night—at another campground
Crummy Red Indian—Micky Mouse America
Uncle Bruins—in Disneyland overalls drag

As if campers—were invulnerable
Grizzley Détente and Perestroika—ruled
A total illusion—until it was too late

The 59th bear—killing a man that night
In the nearby Yellowstone camp—gruesomely
Then our car—wrecking it completely

After that—no more bristling Americana
We were both jumpy—brute ruthless force
Mixed with nightmare loons—midnight lakes

We left the ghoul—of North America behind
In the rearview mirro—it writhed and made
Faces at us—Monsters of the Id with claws

We heard the story—about an Alaska couple
The husband leaving—to find a doctor for his
Pregnant wife—who’d climbed on the roof

The grizzlies were after her—they climbed up
The ladder and then—pulled her down where
Her skull was found—gnawed on & eyeless

Not very Shakespearian—deadly scenarios
Into pulp fiction—bloody and horrible like
Sylvia’s typewriter ribbon—inky black blood

So that years later—on a fishing trip
Visiting Nicky in Alaska—parking our canoe
In a remote beach—by the sea

The Yellowstone Yetti—came back to me
It devoured my brother—it got Sylvia too
I’m supersitious—when it comes to déjà vu

Usually I write poetry—wherever I go
But when precognition—tells me not to

The last thing I want—is for it to come true

Cleaving Mytholmroyd

Mytholmroyd Man
—for Nicholas Hughes

I spent—a lot of time
Out there—in Mytholmroyd
Growing up in—sooty Mexborough

The moors—a moody place for
A moody adolescent—to grow up in
The same with Nicholas—in Alaska

Hunting fishing—the sullen sky
The scud and—smear of red blood
The rabbit traps—salmon trout

The Pennine Hills—a little road
Leading from Yorkshire—to the
Woolen towns—of Lancashire

Ancient church ruins—ghostly
Erected—in the primal landscape
Monolithic moonlit nights—alone?

But Sylvia—was different
She didn’t have—religious hang-ups
Her obsession was—pagan-esque

Sylvia was stilled—with legendary depth
She was deeper than England—deeper still
Her belly—where immense Pike stirred

Sylvia Plath—a pretty little Smith College slut
One of the Seven Sister colleges—part of
The Tri-College Consortium—of Kunts

Teaching in New England—was hard
Being surrounded by—beautiful women
They wanted poetry—naturally

Some couldn’t—keep their hands off me
Nor could I—once they got started
Sylvia got us out of—New England fast

If Sylvia had lived—thru the divorce
I’m sure she would have aged—gracefully
Like a Pike—with a sag belly and grin

Death comes—through natural cycles
The Hawk, the Crow—probably I would have
Wrung her neck—plucked and ate her

Sylvia was brutal—and ambitious
Like a weasel and crow—very intense
She always pursued her ends—seriously

She was the real thing—molded in brass
Worshipping—Big Daddy and me
Now she moves—thru outer darkness

Ariel speeded—up the process
London’s worst winter—in many years
Didn’t help things—her muse took wing

The Queen

The Queen Bee

“Well, well…
A political poet.”
—Cate Blanchett,
Queen Elizabeth

Who owns—The Virgin Queen? Death.
Who owns—My pretty little lips? Death.
Who owns—My Poet Laureates? Death.
Who owns—The English Language? Death.
Who owns—Ted Hughes’ barely still-wheezing lungs? Death.
Who owns—Sylvia’s Plath’s elegant oven? Death.
Who owns—Assia’s unspeakable bedroom desires? Death.
Who owns—Assia’s wicked little tongue? Death.
Who owns—The stony Mytholmroyd Man? Death
Who owns—Assia Weevil’s twisty legs? Death.
Who owns—Sylvia’s last moment on earth? Death
Who owns—Phillip Larkin’s dentures? Death.
Who owns—The Angler’s darting fly-cast trout? Death.
Who owns—The pistol’s oozing blue vapor? Death.
Who owns—The copyright to Love? Death.
Who owns—The bloody abattoir of Baghdad? Death.
Who owns—The slouching Beast of the Beltway? Death.
Who owns—Guantánamo Death Squads? Death.
Who owns—New American Depression? Death.
Who owns—The Wall Street Journal? Death.
Who owns—The New York Times? Death
Who owns—The Tower of London? Death.
Who owns—The Neocon American Empire? Death.
Who owns—Sylvia’s last gasp in Yeats’ kitchen? Death.
Who owns—Nicholas’ last words hanging in his closet? Death.

Nicholas Hughes

Nicholas Hughes

"Something is corrupted
with self-consciousness"
—Ted Hughes, Collected Letters

I clung—to the Hook and Fin!!!
My father's view—of who I was
Son of Hawk—on the inside

I saw myself—like my father
A Hunter—on the moody moors
Sullen outlook—fatally-easy to acquire

Others viewed me—from the outside
Like when—a young man is
Admired—in his own view

For something—he does naturally
But from then on—the boy's vision
Gets corrupted—by growing up

Realizing—how stained and
Corrupted with—consciousness
These Letters are—from me to you

What was easy—at first
Trying to be like you—my father

Got harder—and harder

Knowing you—weren't the One
Just another—great poet laureate
Ignoring—your natal Muse

Sylvia—the true Ariel

Riding—her white stallion

Like Kate Blanchett—the Queen

Prancing before—the Armada

The Pope—the Spanish Empire

Brave like—her father Henry

England—her English Muse

The dominatrix muse—the moody

Sullen Anglo-Saxon—word-goddess

Bent, twisted—snarling Wolf

Deep inside her—earthy English

Megalithic Stonehenge howl!!!

Ted and Sylvia—both poets

Frieda and me—Transatlantic

Offspring—transgressive loins

Hughes and Plath—totally selfish

Dynamic duo—from the Land of Dis

O O O O—that Americana Rag

Aetherial rumours—bets placed

In Olympus—by Madame Sosostris

Famous clairvoyante—Lady of Death

My father—drowned Phoenician Sailor

My mother—Belladonna, Lady of Ariel

How long—could such a marriage last?

Within this wicked—pack of cards

Frieda survived—as future poet

But what about me—faraway Alaska?

Birthday Letters

Birthday Letter Home

“We were comforted
by wolves…”
—Ted Hughes, “Life After
Death,” Birthday Letters

What can I tell you—about death
That you don’t know—already
My eyes turning into—wet jewels

Disembodied hands—reaching
Out to me—my boyhood darkness
Feeling betrayed—not knowing why

My sister slowly—growing & growing
Bleeding to death—an invisible wound
She couldn’t see or touch or know

The Hanged Man—so full of pain
His noose tight—around my neck
His trapdoor dangling—every night

How comforting—the howling wolves
The cold moon—passing overhead
Alaskan sky—Northern Lights above

When the wolves—mourn nightly
They’re wailing—for me and my
Dead mother—deep in the forest

Falling snow—Aurora Borealis
I sink deeply—into folk-tale time
Sylvia—crying in the forest night

How many nights—rehearsing
Wet jewels—flowing down from her
Slavic Asiatic—hooded eyes