Jim Hanson
PLATH’S IRONIES
Without a savior, Sylvia Plath as
self-fated/designated Lady Lazarus can speak
only of the final irony, not of natural dying
but of killing herself. This she calls art,
her calling, as if inspired by a muse. She says
she did it right to make it real.
Sylvia
heroine of hell
mother of child
shamed bard of eerie irony.
Killing herself, Sylvia Plath as
wife of Ted Hughes followed by the
suicide of their son and then the
suicide of Hughes’ mistress who
killed her daughter as well. This Hughes
who goes unaccounted
who then writes about Sylvia with
his disingenuous plea for clemency
“What Happened that Night?”
Hughes
poet laureate of Britain for life
writer of children’s books
shameless burker of fatal irony.
Jim Hanson is a retired Senior Researcher at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, where he worked and taught intermittently in community development since 1966. He currently resides in the St. Louis area. He has a doctorate degree in sociology and is a lay-ordinated Zen Buddhist. His recent interest is the writing of poems about death.
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PLATH’S IRONIES
Without a savior, Sylvia Plath as
self-fated/designated Lady Lazarus can speak
only of the final irony, not of natural dying
but of killing herself. This she calls art,
her calling, as if inspired by a muse. She says
she did it right to make it real.
Sylvia
heroine of hell
mother of child
shamed bard of eerie irony.
Killing herself, Sylvia Plath as
wife of Ted Hughes followed by the
suicide of their son and then the
suicide of Hughes’ mistress who
killed her daughter as well. This Hughes
who goes unaccounted
who then writes about Sylvia with
his disingenuous plea for clemency
“What Happened that Night?”
Hughes
poet laureate of Britain for life
writer of children’s books
shameless burker of fatal irony.
Jim Hanson is a retired Senior Researcher at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, where he worked and taught intermittently in community development since 1966. He currently resides in the St. Louis area. He has a doctorate degree in sociology and is a lay-ordinated Zen Buddhist. His recent interest is the writing of poems about death.