Women In Poetry.

As literature grew to be a part of the world, women began the to pick up the pen and write down their thoughts and feelings. It could have been intended to set themselves free from the oppression that was still breathing near them and to make a stand, not to be equals among men but to demand for respect.

It was hard for me to choose a favourite and so I will share two female poets that I can relate to, along with their short biography and poems from them.

Sylvia Plath

·      She was born on 27 October 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts.

·       Had her first poem published when she was 8 years old in Boston Herald (10 August 1941, page B-8).

·     She was suicidal despite being a bright student, successfully took her own life at 30 years old after her marriage to Ted Hughes fell apart.

·       She is best known for her two published collections: The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel.

·        She won a Pulitzer Prize for The Collected Poems.

Mad Girl's Love Song

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.)

***

Anne Sexton.

·         She was born on 9 November 1928 in Newton, Massachusetts.

·         She was not a fan of studying but started to write and act when her parents sent her to Rogers Hall.

·         Although her beauty and daring character attracted many men, she was troubled and depressed since young and worsened as she grew older.

·         She is best known for her poems The Addict and Cinderella.

·         Received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for Live or Die (1966).

Again and Again and Again

You said the anger would come back 
just as the love did. 

I have a black look I do not 
like. It is a mask I try on. 
I migrate toward it and its frog 
sits on my lips and defecates. 
It is old. It is also a pauper. 
I have tried to keep it on a diet. 
I give it no unction. 

There is a good look that I wear 
like a blood clot. I have 
sewn it over my left breast. 
I have made a vocation of it. 
Lust has taken plant in it 
and I have placed you and your 
child at its milk tip. 

Oh the blackness is murderous 
and the milk tip is brimming 
and each machine is working 
and I will kiss you when 
I cut up one dozen new men 
and you will die somewhat, 
again and again.