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Ah, I see this one went back-channel by accident -- >One can hardly blame Plath for her acolytes; all strong poets breed flurries of incompetent imitations.< No, I certainly wouldn't blame Plath for this . . . impossible to do in retrospect. Just highlighting how pervasive this language has become with regard to soul-baring . . . as if the soul were a blood-clotted circus of horrors. I guess my point would be that it is sometimes the weaknesses of certain writers which are liable to influence others just as much as their strengths . . . I'm thinking for example of Dylan Thomas's propensity for creating sound-salads, which had a terrible influence on W.S. Graham's early work. Thankfully he got over it . . . . The objection to Plath would be her over-use of such 'horrors' in the first place, I think -- an excess which lead to similarly excessive imitations down the line. The Bee poems succeed, I think, because this urge is reined-in. Like any horror film, it's what you don't see -- what you imagine to be there just out of shot -- that's most terrifying. The gore itself is just ketchup. I'm suddenly reminded of my *favourite* Szymborska poem, 'Experiment' -- and wondering how Plath would have treated this same subject. I think the power of Szymborska here is the very casualness of her style -- she doesn't overplay the scene, but allows it to speak for itself. Almost fell off my chair first time I read this. In Plath's 'Thalidomide', on the other hand, I get the uneasy feeling that Plath is simply 'getting off' on the imagery of this subject . . . turning it into yet another act for her bloody circus. Andy %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%