Sylvia Plath's "Metaphors"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), and also The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her suicide in 1963. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honour posthumously.

-bio via Wikipedia

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
0:03.9	I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, January 24th, 2024.
0:10.0	Today's poem is by Sylvia Plath, and it's called Metaphors.
0:15.5	I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and then read it one more time.
0:23.0	Metaphors.
0:28.1	I'm a riddle in nine syllables.
0:32.1	An elephant, a ponderous house.
0:35.3	A melon strolling on two tendrils. Oh, red fruit, ivory, fine timbers.
0:42.4	This loafs big with its yeasty rising. Money is a new minted in this fat purse.
0:49.6	I'm a means, a stage, a cow and calf. I've eaten a bag of green apples. Boarded the train,
0:58.5	there's no getting off.
1:07.2	Sylvia Plath was born 1932 and died tragically at the age of 30 in 1963,
1:21.0	taking her own life after a lengthy, a lifelong battle, really, with depression aggravated by multiple
1:32.3	rounds of electroshock therapy, a very sad, sad and tragic existence for Sylvia Plath.
1:41.8	She wrestled for many years then with various anxieties
1:48.9	which will return to because I think
1:53.3	though I am often careful and very slow
1:59.9	to bring author biographies to bear upon their works.
2:03.7	I think understanding that about Plath helps in the understanding of this poem.
2:08.9	But first, the text itself, I'm a riddle in nine syllables.
2:15.7	This opening line is a kind of syneciki or metonymy. It is also,
2:23.3	maybe to stretch the term just a bit, but it's also a kind of objective correlative in which
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Goldberry Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Goldberry Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.