Southern Sunrise by Sylvia Plath
Color of lemon, mango, peach,
These storybook villas
Still dream behind
Shutters, their balconies
Fine as hand-
Made lace, or a leaf-and-flower pen-sketch.
Tilting with the winds,
On arrowy stems,
Pineapple-barked,
A green crescent of palms
Sends up its forked
Firework of fronds.
A quartz-clear dawn
Inch by bright inch
Gilds all our Avenue,
And out of the blue drench
Of Angels' Bay
Rises the round red watermelon sun.
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not one of her best for me
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Hi Moby,
Did she really spell 'their' like that?
Actually, I totally missed that this poem was by Sylvia Plath on my first reading....so, I was viewing it as something you had written. So (despite my being a novice poet) I was looking for areas where the poem might need help.
I found quite a few. I liked her imagery, but the poem was jerky to read, which didn't create a picture of harmony in the sun. Damn. Maybe that was her intention. What do I know?
Thank your for posting
grannyjill
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i doubt it , i changed it, thanks jill.
i've only been reading her a short while so i'm on the fence.
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I can't get some of Sylvia Plath's stuff yet. But I've gotta say I love 'round red watermelon sun' and actually the entire poem. This poem is almost like Picasso in the sense that the images she is giving you are not the real images you would see necessarily, but the certainly reflect a congruent thought and feeling.
I'm still reading Ariel and re-reading it and re-reading it and googling and wiki-ing . . . I am determined to get this.
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My favorite of Plath's is "Lady Lazarus". I can't stand "Daddy". This one for me lies somewhere in the middle.
I often think that poets like Plath, Sexton, and Millay (and even Dickinson) endure because the body of their work speaks volumes regarding the human condition, and they were writing about things women thought but dared not speak at the time. I am not enamored with all the poetry any of them penned, but I do continue to read the ones I covet.
PS. If you can, try your hand at giving some of the others a bit of feedback. If you already have, thanks, can you do some more?
