First Impressions: Unlocking Doors in the Mind's Mansion

My initial reading of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath's poetry has left a strange but pleasant taste in my literary mouth. Prior to this course I was familiar with only Plath's "The Bell Jar" and a sparse selection of her most anthologized poems. While I loved her novel and have a great appreciation for her prose, I find myself struggling to unpack her poems and easily find meaning, connection, and understanding in them. That is not to say that I do not eventually derive my own meaning in them, connect with them, or discover my understanding of them, but that Plath is work for me. I'm not use to poetry being a task. Perhaps the challenge of peeling open the layers of her poems this semester will cause me to have a greater appreciation for her in the end. Perhaps the labor required of me will make me feel I've earned the glimpse into her mind. For now, though, Plath's early poetry as it appears in "Junevilia" remains something of "an enclosed cosmic circus" built upon "a supercharged system of inner symbols and images," as Ted Hughes expressed in his introduction to "The Collected Poems."

I think that "cosmic circus" was precisely the phrase for which I was searching after my first few Junevilia poems. While I admire and enjoy Plath's very rhythmic and clever use of rhyme, meter, and alliteration, I seemed to lose any sense of meaning in between these precise devices. An example of where I get lost in Plath's flourish imagery is seen in "Moonsong at Morning":

"O moon of illusion, 

enchanting men  

with tinsel vision 

along the vein, 

cocks crow up a rival 

to mock your face 

and eclipse that oval 

which conjured us 

to leave our reason 

and come to this 

fabled horizon 

of caprice. "

But there are certain poems in which Plath's choice in just one specific word will entice me and suggest a great depth of meaning. Her use of the word "whirlpool" in the final stanza of "Family Reunion" creates for me a brilliant image of this swirling, powerful body of water forcibly sucking in, consuming,  and destroying the person "atop the flight of stairs." What is most striking to me about this specific word is not just its implication of luring one in against one's will but also -and especially- that the cause of a whirlpool, in nature, is the presence of opposing currents. The speaker of this poem, be it Plath or an invented narrator, has described the characters and traits of the members of her family reunion. While the speaker is an "opposing current" she is inevitably absorbed into this family, or culture/society of her family. She inevitably casts off her identity (one that contradicts this greater, overwhelming culture) and "make(s) the fatal plunge." This final fatal plunge is made much more rich in meaning to me by the use of that one word: "whirlpool."

It is these select glimpses, moments, short phrases or single words that strike me and entice me to further study Sylvia Plath's poetry. Plath's poetry takes work, but I have an inclination that the journey is worth the effort.

(As a side note, I wonder if Plath ever read or studied the work of Tillie Olsen. Olsen was a phenomenal writer concerned greatly about being sucked into the conformity of an overwhelming society obsessed with sucking up any individuals who are an "opposing current." Plath's voice, or her speaker's, reminds me of Olsen's. Consider tackling Olsen's incredibly dense and moving short stories, layered with both feminist and socialist ideals. Genius writer.)

"Tell Me a Riddle" is a collection of four short stories that will never leave me. This collection shook my world and was unlike any other text I've ever read. Do yourself a favor and read all four stories.

While many in the literary world feel the need to decisively be in either the Plath or Hughes camp, I've discovered I am intrigued and would value a study of both of their works. I have heard Hughes name in passing, only ever in context as being Plath's husband. I dived into his writings with a blank slate, no predispositions, expectations, or pre-formed interpretations. Having no set expectations, I was pleasantly suprised at how much I've thus far enjoyed both his poetry and his prose.

Beginning with the very first poem in our collection, "The Thought-Fox," I was drawn in immediately by the title. I do have a predisposition to liking stories, poems, and images regarding foxes. I long ago fell in love with the fox in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince" and ever since have had a nostalgic fondness for foxes in literature and art.

I won't go greatly into detail over the meaning and interpretation of Hughes' "The Though-Fox" on this entry because we dissected it pretty fully in class and I would like to avoid redundancy. I was greatly drawn to the idea of a creative thought - a poem, specifically- entering one's mind sneakily, stealthily, slyly as a fox. Comparing the capturing of animals, live and unharmed, to the penning of a "live" and "unmaimed" poem was a genius idea that Hughes delves further into in his essay, which I'll respond to below. Beyond the concept in "The Though-Fox" I truly appreciate the way the poems sounds aloud and the way it feels as it rolls off the tongue. Alliteration and scattered subtle slant rhyme is present but not overwhelming and childish, as evident in the line "Though deeper within darkness//Is entering the loneliness" and, simply but beautifully, "Cold, delicately as the dark snow." I generally appreciate poetry containing cues to change pace when reading a poem out loud. The repetition in the lines "Two eyes serve a movement, that now/And again now, and now, and now" is not without purpose. Nothing a (good) poet does is without purpose. One is almost forced to slow down and pause, and perhaps take an intentional breath, between each repetition of "and now"which builds the image of the fox actually slowing down, making a movement, stopping, making a movement, stopping, and a then a final movement. This poem is only perfectly understood when read out loud; it is only perfectly read out loud when the reader is cognizant of these delightful devices that augment so cleverly the meaning. And it seems in exploring more of Hughes' poetry that a greater depth of meaning is found in its oral recitation. 

I will conclude with my abbreviated thoughts on "Poetry in the Making." Abbreviating my response to this will be a challenge for me. As I read through his journey from youthful animal-capturer turned poet, I found in his prose content that is incredibly insightful and language that is incredibly fluid. The image of our minds as mansions containing many locked rooms really struck me as truth. His suggestion for how to deal with those locked rooms, as a creative individual, has left me with much to continually wrestle with outside of the boundaries of LITR 450. Though my printed out copy of the Hughes readings is highlighted and notated through every paragraph, every few sentences, with my favorite words circled in pen and scribbled question marks next to certain ideas, there is one idea that might stand out most paramount in my mind.

That lasting impression is that of Hughes' mastery of poetry, thinking, and observation through fishing. The idea of a fisherman staring "at his float for hours on end" being the key to opening a door to creativity really struck me. He says, "All the little nagging impulses, that are normally distracting your mind, dissolve." He says they have to or else you cannot not settle down, you'll become inevitably bored and give up. But if they do dissolve you will be reworded by entering "one of the orders of bliss." This sort of nirvana-like focus allows an alertness, an awareness, that in turn allows the mind to take in details and open up imagination.

I think this ability to s-l-o-w down and be still is increasingly becoming a diminishing skill over the generations. It was already becoming evidently problematic in Hughes' days, as I feel like he references in his poem "The Horses," and the mega-busy society we live in now has only become further problematic. Creative process, the artists eye and ear, thrives on the stillness, on simple moments, on slowing down of the mind long enough to tap in to our over stuffed, over run, over stressed human brains and retain one or more of those fleeting beautiful, creative, genius thoughts.

I have always  been fascinated by the idea of doing things the slow way and have tried to intentionally engage in some tasks that slow the body and brain down, that require a Hughes' fisherman-type of dissolving nagging impulses. I take my time preparing and cooking almost every meal I eat: I hand chop fresh vegetables, I go through the motions almost ritualistically, I enjoy the sounds of onions popping into heated oil on an iron skillet, I stir in an array of toppings and ingredients til things look just right. I make my coffee in slow-brew methods, grinding my coffee beans fresh each morning, waiting for the kettle to boil on the stove, pouring the water over the single cup filter, listening to the dripping coffee falling into the ceramic mug. It's all a drawn out process. And I don't turn the TV on while I do it. I don't turn the radio on. Other than the occasional passing car or my cat knocking something over in another room, there are no sounds. I often just let the stillness settle in around me.

The magical element to stillness, and dissolving into it, Ray Bradbury wrote about in his semi-autobiographical novel "Dandelion Wine." Within this story there is a high-tech grass invented that only grows to such a height and then stops so that one never needs to mow the lawn again. The grandfather is appalled at this and explains the importance of doing seemingly mundane activities like mowing the lawn and picking dandelions. It is not that grass needs to be mowed, but that it is in human nature to need to mow grass - to be alone, to think, to philosophize, to escape, to be, as Hughes would agree, still.

A beautifully written novel that is perfect to read as Summer ends. As the cover states, it's a "magical evocation of boyhood and summer." Even girls ought to read stories of boyhood and summer.

All this talk of embracing the stillness has ironically energized me. As Autumn is nearly upon us and Winter never long around the corner, I naturally find myself in a season in which I'm more inclined to embrace stillness over movement, silence over noise, solitude over socializing. Perhaps I'll unlock some of those rooms in the mansion of my mind and produce something beautiful for the world.