The Useless Critic 2.0

You endearing crazy bitch you. I hope you and Sylvia are dining together, FOREVS, in Heaven. A Story for Rose on the Midnight Flight to Boston Until tonight they were separate specialties, different stories, the best of their own worst. Riding my warm cabin home, I remember Betsy's laughter; she laughed as you did, Rose, at the first story. Someday, I promised her, I'll be someone going somewhere and we plotted it in the humdrum school for proper girls. The next April the plane bucked me like a horse, my elevators turned and fear blew down my throat, that last profane gauge of a stomach coming up. And then returned to land, as unlovely as any seasick sailor, sincerely eighteen; my first story, my funny failure. Maybe Rose, there is always another story, better unsaid, grim or flat or predatory. Half a mile down the lights of the in-between cities turn up their eyes at me. And I remember Betsy's story, the April night of the civilian air crash and...

In honor of her birthday that was yesterday and her not being alive to celebrate and all, I present to you Sylvia Plath, the official poetess of the Useless Critic! The Beekeeper's Daughter A garden of mouthings. Purple, scarlet-speckled, black The great corollas dilate, peeling back their silks. Their musk encroaches, circle after circle, A well of scents almost too dense to breathe in. Hieratical in your frock coat, maestro of the bees, You move among the many-breasted hives, My heart under your foot, sister of a stone. Trumpet-throats open to the beaks of birds. The Golden Rain Tree drips its powders down. In these little boudoirs streaked with orange and red The anthers nod their heads, potent as kings To father dynasties. The air is rich. Here is a queenship no mother can contest --- A fruit that's death to taste: dark flesh, dark parings. In burrows narrow as a finger, solitary bees Keep house among the grasses. Kneeling down I set my eyes to a hole-mouth and mee...

So Hello World, these are the questions from the people of the world who want changes in the world. Guess what? Changes are being delivered. So this time Brittany and I will be handling the advice section, but consider this a moment in a very new world. March 31, 2011 4:34 PM Cara said...this is going well so far. (- you /rolling eyes A: Everything is in the palm of your hand, if you can dream enough. It is up to you whether you choose to blow a kiss or make a tight fist. March 31, 2011 11:58 (Guess Who) ...I WILL GET YOU QUESTIONS ABOUT VAGINAS A:Is this where I get to write my own? QATFYG: What is the big deal about vaginas? Oh, wait! Miracle of Life Gosh Dammit. April 1, 2011 9:03 AM...do I answer as they pop up or wait until the end of the month? A: Hahaha, you’re late at the end of the month. Bing. April 1, 2011 9:59 AM Anonymous said...HELLO I AM A REAL PERSON WITH FEELINGS TOO! A: Not all people have feelings. Some people are real, but their feelings are not real. They have to p...

I've been meaning to do this for a while, I've just been lazy. let's not let a good thing die! Adrienne Rich is STILL ALIVE, OH MY GOD. here is what you should know about her: - has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century." - she has the same birthday as me so she is a god - she is born the same year as my grandma and Anne Frank - she went to Harvard (Radcliffe) - SYLVIA WAS A FAN - married a guy - realized she was gay - stopped being a housewife - REFUSED THE MEDAL OF THE ARTS :O so here I will post her most popular poem. I am not creative. "Diving Into the Wreck" First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I ham having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. There is a ladder. The ladder i...

OMGOMGOMG the poetry nerd in me today has ejaculated, my friends. A TED HUGHES POEM ABOUT THE DEATH OF SYLVIA PLATH HAS EMERGED. read about it here . shit! those words. "your wife is dead." also, Sylvia Plath is being interred in New York City next month? SAY WHAT? ROADTRIP????

Okay, for my weekly poetic effort, I decided to combine two of my favorite female confessional angst-ridden students-of-Robert-Lowell, Anne Sexton (HBIC) and Sylvia Plath (every oven's best friend). There's something about their bodies of work that's been resonating with me a lot lately. prep for modernist poetry? I THINK SO. Anyway, neither of these ladies lived happy lives and I'm not getting into the sordid details. You think they would! But they didn't. Y R RICH PPL SO SAD. I Am Vertical - Sylvia Plath But I would rather be horizontal. I am not a tree with my root in the soil Sucking up minerals and motherly love So that each March I may gleam into leaf, Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted, Unknowing I must soon unpetal. Compared with me, a tree is immortal And a flower-head not tall, but more startling, And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring. Tonight, in the infinitesimallight of the st...