Sylvia Plath #2

"November Graveyard" by Sylvia Plath (p. 56 in book)

     The scene stands stubborn: skinflint trees
     Hoard last year's leaves, won't mourn, wear sackcloth, or turn
     To elegiac dryads, and dour grass
     Guards the hard-hearted emerald of its grassiness
     However the grandiloquent mind may scorn
     Such poverty.  No dead men's cries

     Flower forget-me-nots between the stones
     Paving this grave ground. Here's honest rot
     To unpick the heart, pare bone
     Free of the fictive vein.  When one stark skeleton
     Bulks real, all saints' tongues fall quiet:
     Flies watch no resurrections in the sun.

     At the essential landscape stare, stare
     Till your eyes foist a vision dazzling on the wind:
     Whatever lost ghosts flare,
     Damned, howling in their shrouds across the moor
     Rave on the leash of the starving wind
    Which peoples the bare room, the blank, untenanted air ("November Graveyard" 1-18)

This is another poem that I really enjoyed reading. I don't know what it is about her work but I like reading all of the depressing poems she writes.  I was looking up information on her because I didn't know much about her life.  However, I learned things such as her father dying when she was eight years old and that she was depressed for a lot of her life. I realized that maybe I liked these dejected poems because I feel the emotions of everything that she has experienced through these poems. That is not to say that the other poems do not evoke emotion. In general, Plath does a wonderful job of writing poetry that is beautiful and depicts imagery so well for those who read her poems.

One aspect that I liked about this poem was the way that death is painted throughout the poem. For instance, she uses descriptive language such as "hard-hearted," "dead," and "grave." I love how she chooses words like these that relate to the overall theme of the poem.  One of my favorite lines is "flower forget-me-nots between the stones." I love her word choice of using "forget-me-nots" especially when she is describing the graveyard. In general, the deceased have gravestones to be remembered.  By Plath using "forget-me-nots" in this sentence, it does a beautiful job of showing that the deceased are always remembered. Another aspect of this poem that I enjoyed was the alliteration that she uses.  For example, she writes "stark skeletons." I love how she uses those words together to depict the concept of death and create imagery for the readers. Finally, I love how she uses some rhyming in her poem. For instance, she uses "stones" to rhyme with "bone." I thought it was really cool how she made those words rhyme especially since it connects to the idea of death.