Wednesday, February 13, 2013

A new inquest …

… Poetry and Poets in Rags: February 12th forum announcement.

It may be that we all have been mistaken. The inquest into her death was short, and maybe her mother's instincts were correct, that Sylvia would not have killed herself. She had attempted before, but it was an attempt, which is what most female suicides are. Males tend to go through with it, whereas women tend to use it in desperation, a sort of cry for help. Al Alvarez and others thought that she intended to be discovered. The vast majority of females suicides do not result in death, and many of those deaths come from miscalculations, such as with Alvarez' hypothesis, that her discoverer did not arrive. Whether he is right or wrong, who could that have been?

1 comment:

  1. HI Frank,

    Thanks for linking.

    It can be eye popping to read some of Sylvia Plath's poems as if she was murdered. As with her poem Sheep in Fog, written in January/February 1963, when we read Lady Lazarus, written the previous October, from the point of view that she knew who would like her dead, her "enemy", the poem becomes not about suicide at all, but defiant to the degree of saying that she is not afraid of his threats, not even afraid of death. Been there, done that. The poem transforms from some dark and cryptic suicide note and makes far more sense.

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