Jon Corelis wrote:
> On one occasion I played the Plath's recording of Daddy to a woman of
my
> acquaintance who had never read it. As soon as it was over she
> remarked, "What a nasty poem!"
But of course. The main reason Plath is worth reading is that, as a real
poet, she lacked taste. A lesser poet would have shared your sensitive
friend's reaction, would have repressed the urge to write in tasteless
unladylike, abnormal ways. Plath had the courage and integrity to write as
she knew the world was, and damn tastefulness.
Isn't there always a "Wound and the Bow" dimension to great poets? I think
of Eliot, with the intellectual/moral courage to write the world as he felt
it, not just stay inside the limitations of nice polite Georgian prosody.
The cost of this was that part of what he expressed was his nasty
anti-Semitism.
It's not the job of the poet to be tasteful or comfy. It's the job of a poet
to write and be damned. And there will always, as this Plath thread shows,
be a long queue of tasteful people ready to do the damning.
George
______________________________________________
George Simmers
Snakeskin Poetry Webzine is at
http://www.snakeskin.org.uk
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