What if Sylvia Plath and Assia Wevill had read the poetry of Sara Teasdale?
Perhaps, they would have lived.
Then again, other things can happen when voices call to you from the grave...
I hesitate to speculate,
Yet, thought that I'd investigate -
When poetess draws last breath -
What compels her to seek out Death?
To loathe the men who loved and lied,
implicated in their suicide,
It is illogical, of course,
Such is the nature of remorse.
Perhaps, if they'd identified,
The mental angst that drove their pride,
The innocents, who had no say,
Could have been spared of such dismay.
It's hard to say, not being there,
What other traits that they might share,
I'm sure that most agree with me,
That such a loss is tragedy.
I cannot say that this is true,
Bear with me now and see this through --
I offer this as allegory,
Or view it as a haunting story.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If Teasdale's ghost had visited --
From After Death -- would they have heard?
Or would a home inhabited
By Sara's spirit seem absurd?
Haunted by her Immortal soul --
That will not sleep forevermore,
Or would her words be lost to time?
A wave that never finds the shore.
What if whispers to Sylvia
Had sent her down a deadly path?
Would one not lonely, having died,
Seek kindred spirit in Ms. Plath?
Imagine Teasdale as Plath's friend,
would they, perhaps, plot as revenge,
a haunting to a bitter end?
Plath's failed marriage to avenge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
As Plath and Teasdale rise from villain's hell -
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
All the world will ask -- "What is wrong with Ted?"
Lured by Mad Girl's Love Song in villanelle -
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
Assia eyes the oven, half filled with dread,
Alas - the wrath of Plath - she soon befell -
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
Wevill traded her life for Ted Hughes' bed -
When in Sylvia's flat he had her dwell.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
You fancied he'd live up to what he said?
Thus, this refrain became Wevill's death knell.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
If they had stayed with their husbands instead;
Not one would have rung Death's untimely bell.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A footnote now in history,
They each succumbed to misery.
Where once they each had happy lives,
For a short time when they were wives,
Their joy they could not separate,
Death by own hand became their fate.
One life was steeped in loneliness,
The other two died of regrets.
One lost to pills, two -- oven's gas:
Mourning Teasdale, Wevill, and Plath.
If only these poor tortured souls
Had found self-strength to make them whole.
Written there -- in their poetry --
Penned plainly for the world to see,
Would they have made such fatal choice,
If each had heard the other's voice?
|
Author Notes
Today I am pondering the suicides of three poetesses. I would like to thank Cat for the inspiration to this piece... this piece is in response to her post, "What's Wrong with Ted?" http://www.fanstory.com/displaystory.jsp?hd=1&id=802766
I'd like to wish Cat a huge thank you for loving this piece so much that you would help promote it! :) I appreciate your enthusiastic support!
In the spirit of originality, I've added one more poetess to the story, Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933) who committed suicide at the age of 48. I have done this by quoting, in italics, from the works of Teasdale (in blue) and Plath (in red), interspersed with my poetic story (in black), in a combination of quatrain and villanelle styles. You will notice the changing rhyme scheme in the quatrains to indicate Teasdale's part, and the ghost of Plath influencing Wevill through her lines in the villanelle. Judging by Teasedale's poetry (I will post some below) and accounts I have read about her, she was a very lonely soul. She was the first Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1918, ironically, for her 1917 collection titled, "Love Songs." She was married from 1914 to 1929. All reports were that it was a happy marriage, but she was lonely because her husband was always away on business. She left the state of New York for three months (to divorce him) and returned to live only a few blocks away. She committed suicide in 1933. I believe her and Sylvia Plath would have been kindred spirits. Perhaps, in death, she and Plath have become friends.
Assia Wevill-
(May 15, 1927 -March 23, 1969) was a German-born woman who escaped the Nazis at the beginning of World War II and emigrated to Mandate Palestine, then later Great Britain, where she had a relationship with the English poet Ted Hughes. Wevill was married to her third husband, David Wevill, when she began her affair with Ted. She killed herself and Hughes's four-year-old daughter Alexandra Tatiana Elise (nicknamed "Shura") in a fashion similar to that of Sylvia Plath, who six years earlier had also committed suicide, by use of a gas oven. Speculation is that after six years she came to the conclusion that Ted Hughes was not going to marry her. She felt that her daughter would become a "second class citizen," in the Hughes family (after she was dead) so she chose to keep "Shura" with her into death.
Sylvia Plath-
October 27, 1932 -February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College at the University of Cambridge, before receiving acclaim as a poet and writer. She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956; they lived together in the United States and then the United Kingdom, and had two children, Frieda and Nicholas. Plath was clinically depressed for most of her adult life. She died by suicide in 1963.
Ted Hughes-
(17 August 1930 -28 October 1998) was an English poet and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation, and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He served as Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death. In 2008, The Times ranked Hughes fourth on their list of "The 50 greatest British Writers since 1945."
Selections of poetry for Sara Teasdale and Sylvia Plath:
Alone
I am alone, in spite of love,
In spite of all I take and give -
In spite of all your tenderness,
Sometimes I am not glad to live.
I am alone, as though I stood
On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
About me only swirling snow,
Above me, endless space unfurled;
With earth hidden and heaven hidden,
And only my own spirit's pride
To keep me from the peace of those
Who are not lonely, having died.
Sara Teasdale
After Death
Now while my lips are living
Their words must stay unsaid,
And will my soul remember
To speak when I am dead?
Yet if my soul remembered
You would not heed it, dear,
For now you must not listen,
And then you could not hear.
Sara Teasdale
Immortal
So soon my body will have gone
Beyond the sound and sight of men,
And tho' it wakes and suffers now,
Its sleep will be unbroken then;
But oh, my frail immortal soul
That will not sleep forevermore,
A leaf borne onward by the blast,
A wave that never finds the shore.
Sara Teasdale
Mad Girl's Love Song
A Villanelle by Sylvia Plath
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.)
|
|
