Sylvia Plath is considered to be one of the most influential feminist writers of the contemporary age. Her writing explores what it was like to grapple with mental health struggles, constrained desire, and dissatisfaction as a woman in the 1950s. She notably used playful imagery and sometimes rhyme in her writing, which made the tackling of such topics more digestible, and henceforth, more relatable to a wider audience. The popularity of Sylvia Plath’s work is prevalent almost 60 years after her death, and not just in the classroom. Searching Plath’s name on TikTok elicits thousands of videos of young people praising her writing, relating to her words, and sharing their favorite quotes from her. Clearly, the incredible words of Plath are pieces that many people can find solace in today; her words capture the feeling of hopelessness, the pressure of societal expectations, and the bleakness that depression can induce. These are feelings that almost everyone has felt at one point or another, and so it is no surprise that Plath has found resonance across generations.
The countless accolades that have established Plath as a keystone female writer of the 20th century, while well deserved, have had a negative effect in recent years by leaving no room for other female writers of the era. It is as if she checks the box for “20th-century female writers” on many syllabi or general knowledge of literature, but this is not the case. This is to no fault of her own, and may even be attributed to the long history of sexism and erasure of female written works in the writing and publishing community, but that does not mean that it’s unnecessary or futile to share the works of others as well.
If you are interested in the works of Sylvia Plath, or confessional poetry in general, prolific writer Adrienne Rich will be right up your alley. Rich was a queer, activist, poet, and essayist writing during the same time as Plath. She produced quite a bit of confessional poetry herself, as well as essays and critiques on sexism, feminism, racism, identity, sexuality, and politics. I learned about Rich very recently, and upon reading her poetry series Twenty-One Love Poems, I felt that same sense of being apprehended that I felt the first time I read Plath’s The Bell Jar, the relief of having my unvoiced feelings perfectly patterned into words by another. I have read her sonnets countless times since discovering her, and they have yet to lose their ability to make my chest ache. I am moved by her language, time and time again, and her careful stringing together of the scene, the lonesomeness she feels, as well as her Whitmanian appreciation for the human experience. One of my favorite few lines in “Poem 2” reads, “At twenty, yes: we thought we’d live forever. / At forty-five, I want to know even our limits. / I touch you knowing we weren’t born tomorrow, / and somehow, each of us will help the other live, / and somewhere, each of us must help the other die” (lines 13-17). The idea of this expansive relationship, that the impact this connection will have will last across their lifetimes no matter how their romantic relationship ends, is just absolutely beautiful. I also love the lines, “I dreamed you were a poem, / I say, a poem I wanted to show someone,” (lines 10-11) from “Poem 2.”To compare the beloved to her craft is so kind, and shows an immense appreciation for them. She is proud of the person she loves, viewing them as a piece of writing she is so proud and moved by that she feels the urge to share it with others.
Whether you were already familiar with Rich, or this is your first encounter with her writing, I hope that you are more acquainted with her as an author than you were prior to this discussion.