Sylvia Plath

She's an amazing poet with a tragic history.
Here's her poem "Lady Lazarus". I'm writing about it for an English paper.


I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it-
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,

My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.


Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?-


The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be

At home on me

And I am a smiling woman.

I am only thirty.

And like the cat I have nine times to die.


This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.


What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see


Them unwrap me hand and foot-
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies,


These are my hands,
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.


The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut


As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.


Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.


I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.


It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical


Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:


"A miracle!"
That knocks me out.
There is a charge


For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart-
It really goes.


And there is a charge, a very large charge
For the word or a touch
Or a bit of blood


Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.


I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby


That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your concern.


Ash, ash-
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there-


A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling,


Herr God, Herr Lucifer,
Beware
Beware.


Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair.
And I eat men like air.