Sylvia Plath reads November Graveyard

In this poem, Sylvia talks about the cemetery in Heptonstall. She was buried there in 1963.

November Graveyard

The scene stands stubborn: skinflint trees
Hoard last year's leaves, won't mourn, wear sackcloth, or turn
To elegiac dryads, and dour grass
Guards the hard-hearted emerald of its grassiness
However the grandiloquent mind may scorn
Such poverty. No dead men's cries

Flower forget-me-nots between the stones
Paving this grave ground. Here's honest rot
To unpick the heart, pare bone
Free of the fictive vein. When one stark skeleton
Bulks real, all saint's tongues fall quiet:
Flies watch no reserrections in the sun.

At the essential landscape stare, stare
Till your eyes foist a vision dazzling on the wind:
Whatever lost ghosts flare
Damned, howling in their shrouds across the moor
Rave on the leash of the starving mind
Which peoples the bare room, the blank, untenanted air.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Sylvia
• Plath
• reads
• November
• Graveyard
• poem

[Nannhay25]

Has anyone ever questioned if it's really depression, that makes someone beacome an artist or is the disease called oversensitivity? hipersensitivity? I myself am musician and people who are closest to me think I am depressed, but I on th other hand think I am blessed, for they will never preceive and inhale the world as I do. Nor will they be able to give in the form in which I constantly give.

[sugarrayofsunshine]

If you don't like it - you don't get it.

[krisatsea]

Thanks for posting this with pictures of her-hard to find her readings on here without someone's interpretation of what they mean.... and I love her nose it's an artist's nose :)

[swiminthissilense]

@Jazzdog40 nooo! did she say that? i love them both immensely

[2010MahaKhan9700]

hey guys i didnt recheck so soo sorry for the tenses words and spelling mistakes!hope u got the idea of my message!!

[2010MahaKhan9700]

she was born at such a time into such a family and was married to such a man such that she did not deserved!a sensitive innocent and talented deserved a good family and a loving faithful husband!!she deserved help and support at a time when she was alone and in crisis!!her folly was that she had loved ,poured too much of herself and found refuge n a man who going to disappoint her!!poor soul!an excellent poet!!her fans recognised her true condition way too late!!she deserved better!!far better!

[9raider]

@Nannhay25 Maybe so but in Sylvia Plath's case, it was depression. If you read The Bell Jar this is quite clear and of course the fact that she killed herself provides further evidence. Such a loss - she was literally a genius (her IQ was genius-level).

[gwizdawka]

Poor and excellent Sylvia!

[radoxme]

I feel her very cynical. After reading the bell jar I think she was essentially tortured for such cynicism of religion, men, marriage and hypocracy. This torture still goes on today in hospitals. One has the option to cheer up and gain acceptance or end it all. I think you have to learn to be two faced as my nurse has told me to be. Some people just put themselves on a mission to change this perverted world and end up getting crushed. At least now we have the net to voice contempt anonymously.