The Life and Writings of Sylvia Plath After reading and discussing many poets and their written work, I have realized that not only pain, but any emotion that the poet is feeling, plays a large part in how the poems express themselves through their writing. I have chosen to explore Sylvia Plath and the poems she has written and how her pain and personal experiences have influenced her poetry. Similar to many other authors of the twentieth century, Sylvia Plath’s writing was influenced largely by her depression and mental illness. I found it rather interesting that her life began during The Great Depression and that from a young girl at the age of eight she was suffering and battling her own personal depression. It’s almost as …show more content…

I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anaesthetist and my body to surgeons.

They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.

My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage ----
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.

I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat
Stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.

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