The poetry of Kim Addonizio

I have some thoughts about the poetry of Kim Addonizio. Her poetry is very shocking for the first time and the coarse words she uses surprised me, not to mention that she is capable of speaking about her sexual partners and her sex and night life in such an overt manner. (I do not know if she can still be ranked among the confessionalists or not).
In “One-Night Stands” we have a really very unusual and shocking beginning, relating her sexual habits while being drunk. We can imagine ourselves being in a bar with her, looking at her when she finally manages to find a partner for that night whom she will never see again in her life. She overtly says that
“These are people we’re meant
to lose, moments that rinse off.”
The last line is surprising however, she asks for love although she never wants to see her lover again. Maybe under the surface of a woman without emotions, she is full of love, full of passion, and she does not really want to be together with someone else every night and she is looking for a durable relationship.
Unfortunately, a long-lasting relationship may have many problems and conflicts and sometimes we are not able to find solutions to them. If we read the poem entitled “Collapsing Poem”, we can see the “side-effects” of being together with somebody. The sobbing and drunk woman outside and the man inside cannot find the point in their life and cannot really imagine why they are still together or how could they love each other in the past. By now, they do not have what to speak about “given the lack of context, given your own failures”. This must be the saddest moment in a marriage which is supposed to last forever and was concluded in the presence of God. Finally, she gets in, but instead of making up with her husband, she begins to hit him. This is the point when the poet addresses herself to the reader, evoking “pity and fear” among the audience and she asks us to take her away as soon as possible. So she runs away from constant relationships and from one-night relationships as well. What is the solution then? Being alone? No, we all know that anything is better than be alone.
We can also leave our existing partner; “Leaving Song” is about that. In it, the poet says goodbye to his lover, evoking some images of their past life. How they used to lie together, how he curled away her in sleep, the quick kisses and the drinks. Here drinking a lot, as a recurrent motif, comes back. She describes the process of how they became totally drunk. She admits she liked this situation as well, because he said such things he could not have said sober. She is constantly saying goodbye, and, as the symbols of drunkenness and alcoholism, the drained bottles appear which he should line up. She seems to quit forever and never wants to go back. That is why this is the leaving song.

Modeling poem #1

Sylvia Plath, Friday Night with my Family

Another dull Friday night with my husband and children
We are sitting in front of the TV and watching The Hathaways.
This bizarre sitcom makes me suffocate and die
Just like this room and Ted who must have a hidden affair.

But what should I do? Daddy, you must help me.
I wonder what you are doing right now. Are you a cherub or a damned soul?
I want to follow you, to be the next one to die after you---
Kids, stop pulling each other’s hair! --- Oh, you are like a bunch of bees.

I feel the relieving death so close to me, and now I am longing for it.
One day, you will wake up and you will not find me here anymore.
I will be like those in those German camps,
Breathing the black poison-gas while being laughed at by some dumb soldiers.

Then you can call Dr. Horder or anyone else you want,
No one will help you and me, the unique Easter miracle will not be observed again.
And I am going to be together with my Daddy,
We will be floating together towards Eternity.

1962

Modeling poem #1

I chose to imitate Sylvia Plath in this assignment because we had many poem of her so it was easier to imitate her this way. First I read her autobiography and collected her major ideas just like her fascination with death, her relationship with her father, her grief and rage. Among her ideas I also found her inclination to suicide, her confusion, the memory of her German ancestors related to the Nazi Holocaust.
I followed the aspects of confessionalism as discussed in class. So I let speak the “I” of the poem, i.e. the author herself. The whole poem is about her feelings, emotions and passions. I know that Plath had an inborn hatred for household chores and caring with a big family so I deliberately opened the poem with a Friday night “let’s watch TV together” scene. I suppose every Friday night to be alike, nothing ever changes in the life of the family and that is what kills Plath and makes her suffocate. The Hathaways were a short-run TV show on ABC in the 60s; it was about a suburban family and about its life. I deliberately chose it to symbolize Plath’s life and the circumstances she lived in. This way I could even make the pop culture appear. The boredom, the routine and the mediocrity of her life slowly makes her parish. This is my off-center opening as well. She does not immediately begin to speak about her long for death; first we are kind of introduced to her life.
The criterion of the autobiographical subject is absolutely achieved in the poem, I opened it with this TV scene, than I introduced her husband, Ted Hughes, and made and allusion to his affair which is not entirely known by Sylvia though she is still suspicious. The infidelity of her husband just makes the situation even worse, and by revealing her suspicion to the audience, she chose to speak about a taboo subject. The other autobiographical element was the evocation of her father (Daddy) who is the very person she wants to be with. I even made Dr. Horder, her M.D. of that time, appear to ensure the lifelike settings of the poem.
The Freudian scheme of irrelevant detail is also here, the children stand for it. We have a small allusion to their presence; they are just pulling each other’s hair and they need to be frowned on. I suppose her life to be full of events like this one; obviously this is not her dream and does not get very excited about bringing children up. I put here a free association concerning the children who are like a “bunch of restless bees”.
While writing the poem I did not forget to criterion of colloquial style. Its vocabulary is quite simple, the author addresses the audience and I did not put there any mythological element, only one allusion to Jesus’ Redemption and a cherub (but I do not know if she was religious or not).
The last two lines are supposed to be the final symbolic broadening, where everything finds its proper place and the author finds relief and peace, i.e. she finally dies.
As far as the free or open forms, I was happy to use them as I did not have to find rhymes or count the syllables.
Anyway this poem is from 1962, one year before her suicide, when everything is just collapsing around her and she cannot handle with her life anymore.

Sylvia Plath`s poetry

One of my favorite poems written by Sylvia Plath is the one entitled In Plaster. She must have written it after an accident when one of her legs or arms was broken and she had to stay in bed for a while with ``This new absolutely white person and the old yellow one`` as she says. The personification of the plaster runs through the whole poem, it behaves like a real human being, it has feelings, hatred and even fears. Plath even gives it a gender, she uses ``she`` when speaking about the plaster. Let us see then ``her`` qualities. She is strong and resists to the attacks ``like a true pacifist`` and as I have said, she has emotions; she wants Plath to love her that is why she began to warm up. She tries to please the sick person. She is even grateful as she can thank her existence to the fact that Plath broke her arm or leg and now, as a well-educated person, she tries to ingratiate herself with her owner. After a while, after the initial hatred being wiped out, they became good and close friends, and ``our relationship grew more intense`` as Plath says. I can easily imagine them while having some female, gossipy chitchat about the course of the world in a way good friends do this. However, I think Plath would not really appreciate this sexist attitude of mine. Interestingly, after a while this intimate relationship seems to be broken and the plaster is losing her temper and wants more than what is assigned for her. Strangely, she does not want to die, to vanish, instead, she wants to live forever and dominate then kill the sick person. She tries to break the order of Nature. This is the part I appreciate the most in this poem, Plath`s really rich imaginative power and force while describing the behavior of this `runaway` plaster. I have already had my arm broken, it was in plaster, but I could have never thought about the plaster the way Plath does (that is why she is a poet and I am not). This white ``torso`` thinks she is ``immortal``. She does not act overtly, she is just hoping that maybe one day her owner is going to die and then she will be able to cover her and destroy her. Another very attracting metaphor is the one when Plath says her relationship with the plaster is like a marriage as it was as close as a marriage is. As if it was a saint institution, based upon two persons` unanimous decision to spend their entire life together, as if they would never leave each other and she will always wear her plaster stuff. Of course, this is not the case, after having recovered she will throw the plaster away who is going to miss her. This part is very strange for me. I do not really know why the plaster would miss her former owner. Not to mention the fact that she will be destroyed after being removed from Plath`s body.
The poem The Colossus has some common features with the poem of Ted Hughes entitled Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days. The images of putting things together, that of mutilation certainly show that the two poets were having an impact on each other`s poetry.

Robert Lowell`s poetry

One of my favorite poems written by Robert Lowell is the one entitled For the Union Dead. Many important and significant issues and questions of the 20th century America are raised and answered in it by the author`s own (sometimes not PC or governmentally approved) point of view. First, we could mention his dissenting opinion about the demolition of the past in Boston in order to have a more modern, really 20th century city. He tries to justify the sense and the reason for existence of the old parts of the city by recollecting his far child memories, remembering the unforgettable moments he spent in the Aquarium. His efforts seem to be absolutely futile; people in the modern, capitalist America do not care about remnants of the old world, they want more and more garages, more and more space to their cars to park. In this poems cars and parking lots embody the `brave new world`, the modern America of the 60 s. The other relevant issue is, I think, the `sweet and glorious death for our homeland`. Is it really as sweet and as glorious as `advertised` by the all-time government propaganda? Taking a look at Colonel Shaw`s war monument, we may say, seeing that even the one-time so appreciated colonel is `hindering the necessary development`, no, there is no point in dying for our country, as sooner or later even the great winners will be disposed of. Eventually, he died for nothing; his name will not be noted later on but rather wiped out together with those of the common soldiers. The clashing of the past and the present is present again. Although this does not appear overtly in this poem (we only have some allusions to this), we should know, as Michael Thurston notices, Lowell`s `ambiguity` towards `negroes`. This issue should require a whole new entry; here it seems to be satisfying to claim the well known fact that the 60s were the era of the civil rights movements and the approval of Blacks` rights.
The great devastation caused by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima is also mentioned, but now, in the 60s, it is linked, as everything, to advertisements, this is just another tool in the hands of some great companies to attract people`s attention. The fear and the possibility of a similar blast seem to be excluded; only the happy parts of life are emphasized.
The same motive comes back in Fall 1961, but in this case there is no trace of happy advertisements but the cruel and harsh realities of an absolutely possible war are depicted. The title of the poem may be as well `End is Nigh`-so wake up and be prepared. A nuclear war could have easily happened, killing more people than in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroying our homes, people and cultural heritage piled up during long decades. Maybe due to Providence or human agreement, we managed to avoid the worst, but who knows, maybe in future, everything will be repeated again and that time we will not be able to get away with the huge blast…(I hope this will never happen, anyway…!)

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