Sylvia Plath

&

Ted Hughes

 

Never try to trick me with a kiss                                    Sylvia

 

Never try to trick me with a kiss
Pretending that the birds are here to stay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

A stone can masquerade where no heart is
And virgins rise where lustful Venus lay:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.

Our noble doctor claims the pain is his,
While stricken patients let him have his say;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

Each virile bachelor dreads paralysis,
The old maid in the gable cries all day:
Never try to trick me with a kiss.

The suave eternal serpents promise bliss
To mortal children longing to be gay;
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

Sooner or later something goes amiss;
The singing birds pack up and fly away;
So never try to trick me with a kiss:
The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.

Source:

http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6642&poem=33184

 

Ted

                                                            September

 

We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold:
No clock counts this.
When kisses are repeated and the arms hold
There is no telling where time is.

It is midsummer: the leaves hang big and still:
Behind the eye a star,
Under the silk of the wrist a sea, tell
Time is nowhere.

We stand; leaves have not timed the summer.
No clock now needs
Tell we have only what we remember:
Minutes uproaring with our heads

Like an unfortunate King's and his Queen's
When the senseless mob rules;
And quietly the trees casting their crowns
Into the pools.

 

Source:

http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6616&poem=29564

 

                           

In this paper I am going to analyze two poems, one written by Ted Hughes, and the other written by Sylvia Plath. I am trying to find differences or similarities between these two writers, a woman poet and a man poet. Does woman poetry exist? Does man poetry exist? Can we differenciate a poem or poetry written by a woman or by a man? Are the different writings so evident? I will try to answer these questions along my paper.

It is important to know for the reader that Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes were married, so in this couple it is possible to find similarities but not because they wrote in the same way, but because they read their poems, and corrected them. So, the ideas of the two were in the same poem.

Firstly, I am going to analyze the poem by Sylvia Plath. The way that this woman writes is simple but repetitive. In this poem she repeats the same verse sometimes. I think this is a way to confirm the idea she wants to express in the poem. The poem is named “Never try to trick me with a kiss”, which she repeats in verses one, six, twelve and eighteen. This sentence seems to be a warning, she says it again and again, once in each stanza, so it is a way to remember the reader her idea. There is another sentence that she repeats some times: “The dying man will scoff and scorn at this”, in verses three, nine, fifteen and nineteen. If we realise these two sentences could be her message, because she ends her poem with the two:

“So never try to trick me with a kiss:

The dying man will scoff and scorn at this.”

This poem consists of six stanzas, the first five have three verses, and the last stanza has four. The verses have all ten syllables except verses one, six and twelve, which correspond to the title of the poem, and which have nine syllables. The poem has visual rhyme, very regular; this is ABA-ABA-ABA-ABA-ABA-ABAA. It is very easy to read: kiss-this-is-kiss-his-this-paralysis-kiss-bliss-this-amiss-kiss-this; and stay-lay-say-day-gay-away.

 I think this woman wrote this poem in a state of anger, it seems to be an advice or that she wants to put distance between her and on other person. I think she found a very polite way to say something that is difficult to say.

 

The other poem, the one by Ted Hughes, is quite different. Named “September”, it consists of four stanzas, all of them regular with four verses each stanza. But the verses this time have not the same syllables. This man mixed long verses and short ones. His vocabulary is accurate and concise. He says what he wants to say without beating about the bush. So, this is an important difference between him and his wife.

In this poem the poet talks about time. As we see in first and second verses

“We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold:

No clock counts this.”

he is talking about some people when he starts writing “We”, another person is involved in this poem. The poet is describing a moment, a think a moment that he wanted to stop and this moment never goes. This poem is a kind of immortalization of a moment.

         If we see the title we could realize that with this description the poet is referring to a month, to September, so the poem, the moment described here happened during the life of the poet, in one of his Septembers.

         The poem does not follow a regular structure, odd verses are long, and even verses are short; but they have not a regular number of syllables. The rhyme is difficult, too. Only the first stanza and the third one have a rhyme, but the other two are difficult to find its rhyme.

         The first impression when reading the poem is seeing a couple sit on a beach or on a mountain, or in some clear place watching the dusk. The end of the day and the midsummer (verse five), so the start of the end of summer, a comparison done by the poet, who describes a situation that he wants to stop. He is saying that there is no time in this situation: “No clock counts this” (verse two), “Time is nowhere” (verse eight), or “No clock now needs” (verse ten).

I think these two poems are very different, in the way they have been written, what the say, and the way the poets have expressed their ideas. Firstly, the woman uses repetition and comparisons in her poem to introduce her ideas slowly. She does not want to tell something, she wants the reader to realize what she is saying. What has been written by the man is different. He uses comparisons, too. But he describes a situation, so it is easy for the reader to understand, because the reader has not to do any effort to understand what he is saying. After that, I do not think, as I questioned before, that we can say that there is a woman poetry and man poetry. These are only two different ways of writing poetry, and the two ways are very acceptable.

         From my point of view, these two poems are very good, easy to understand, each one in its way. But both of them are poetry, and I think they are good poetry.

        

 

 

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Bibliography:

http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6616&poem=29564

http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6642&poem=33184                           

10.May.2006

 

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/thughes.htm

10.May.2006

 

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/splath.htm

10.May.2006