ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Dr. David Lavery Summer 2015  Meeting 10 

Screening: Voices and Visions: Sylvia Plath 7/28/15 | Meeting 10 PSR Chronology: 1969 Reading: Portable Sixties Reader—Part Seven: Out of the Fire: The Black Arts and the Reshaping of Black Consciousness (443-87) | Sylvia Plath: all | MMDCTTV: Marc (226) Screening: Voices and Visions: Sylvia Plath Case Study: Poetry in the Sixties Mad Men Season 5: "Far Away Places" or "Signal 30" Meeting 10  ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Portable Sixties Reader—The Sixties: A Chronology (xvii-xli) 1969 Meeting 10  ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

David Lavery’s birthday (8/27) comes up as the 362 BD pulled in the lottery. His alternative plans to (1) sniff moth balls for a month (thus reducing himself to a puddle of snot) prior to his draft physical or (2) run away to Canada (as a college junior he had copyedited a book on the subject written by a pacifist Clarion State College librarian) become unnecessary. 1969 ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Meeting 10 

Portable Sixties Reader—Part Seven: Out of the Fire: The Black Arts and the Reshaping of Black Consciousness (443-87) Meeting 10  ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

MMDCTTV: Marc (226) Meeting 10 ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Screening: Voices and Visions: Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath: all Screening: Voices and Visions: Sylvia Plath Meeting 10  ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Case Study: Poetry in the Sixties Meeting 10  ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Mad Men Season 5: "Far Away Places" or "Signal 30" Meeting 10  ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Dr. David Lavery Summer 2015  Season 5

Don Draper has married his secretary Megan Calvet, who throws a surprise birthday party for Don and their co-workers. Don is embarrassed by the party and Megan serenading him in front of his co-workers. Megan (who has been promoted to copywriter) meanwhile struggles with Don's growing detachment with work, as he is constantly having Megan come in late and leave early to the agency, and her own unfulfilled dream of being an actress. Don's detachment alienates Peggy, who is being made to train Megan, and Bert, who feels that Don has gone "on love leave", not caring about his job or turning in quality work. Feeling her chances at work have been undercut by Don's detachment, the couple have a fight while touring a Howard Johnson's hotel. Don leaves Megan behind in a huff when she tells him that she's come to find the advertising industry hollow and superficial. Megan manages to hitch a ride back to their new apartment, where they fight and ultimately reconcile. Don's slacking at work coincides with the arrival of a new hire, in the form of young advertising phenom Michael Ginsberg. Young, aggressive, and anti-social, Ginsberg proves to be a rival for Don and Peggy. When the two are made to pitch advertisements for a snow cone company, Don purposely leaves behind Ginsberg's child-friendly campaign material in order to pitch his own darker, devil-themed campaign instead, which is ultimately chosen. Meanwhile, Peggy finds herself reaching a glass ceiling with regards to Ginsberg being able to rise faster within the company. However, one evening Ginsberg confides his dark secret to Peggy: that he was born in a Nazi concentration camp for Jews, 5 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

where his mother died and that he spent his first five years in an orphanage before his father found him and took him to America to live. By the end, Peggy decides to leave the agency for another firm in order to fulfill her full potential. Don attempts to keep her by offering her a raise but ultimately concedes that Peggy has to leave him to continue out of his shadow. Before she leaves the office forever, Don kisses her hand, finally realizing how important she was to him. Peggy also makes a new change at home: she accepts her boyfriend's proposal to live together, to her mother's disapproval. Elsewhere, Roger struggles to remain relevant in the company as Pete Campbell schemes to steal his plush office for himself. Roger begins to secretly pay Peggy and Ginsberg to produce material for him to pitch to clients. He also experiments with LSD, which has a profound impact on him and his own marriage to Jane; under the influence of the drug the two confess that their marriage has failed and they divorce. Roger meanwhile begins pursuing an affair with Megan's mother, culminating in Don's daughter Sally catching her step-grandmother performing oral sex on Roger. Pete Campbell, having moved to the suburbs, begins to become more and more detached from his life and starts missing the big city. His relationship with Lane Pryce collapses and the two fight, with Lane beating Pete up in front of the other partners. He also begins a relationship with Beth Dawes, the wife of a fellow train commuter, who later breaks off the affair out of guilt even though she and Pete know that her husband is unrepentant in his own adultery. She later tells Pete that her husband is forcing her to undergo electroshock therapy because of her manic depression. Pete visits his mistress one last time in the hospital, whose memories of the affair have been destroyed. He confronts Beth's husband 5 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

later on the train, revealing the affair and culminating in a fist fight. Returning home defeated and alone, his wife Trudy agrees to allow Pete to rent an apartment in the city for overnight stays. Joan struggles with single motherhood while her husband is overseas, with help from her mother. However, when she discovers that Greg has signed up for another tour of duty in the Army Medical Corps without consulting her, Joan confronts Greg and in the process denounces him for his earlier rape of her and orders him out of her and their son's life. Greg reluctantly agrees but then files for divorce, which upsets Joan as she fears that Greg will paint her as the villain in their divorce case. Further complicating things is the firm's pursuit of Jaguar as a client, as Pete is able to get a promise that the agency will get the account if Joan sleeps with the head of the Jaguar dealers' association. Pete arranges a vote behind Don's back, and the other partners reluctantly agree to pay Joan to have sex with the executive to secure the account for them. However, Lane convinces Joan to take an ownership percentage of the company instead as Don tries (and fails) to stop Joan from doing the deed. The firm wins the account, but alienates Joan and Don from the rest of the partners and from each other. 5 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Lane Pryce struggles with his own demons as he is revealed to be greatly in debt and owing a good amount of taxes from when he moved his money to the US last season to help keep the firm afloat. When his scheme to use his Christmas bonus to pay off his tax debt fails, Lane is forced to steal from the company to pay his debt. Bert and Don discover this and Don fires Lane, who then kills himself rather than face the disgrace of resigning and returning to England. He hangs himself in his office, leaving Roger, Pete, and Don to cut him down. Nobody but Don knows the reason behind his suicide. Megan (who has returned to acting) seeks Don's help to secure a commercial role for her. Megan's visiting mother cruelly denounces Megan's ambitions and tells Don that he should not help Megan, as she believes that Megan's dream of acting must be crushed and that she should behave like the proper wife of a wealthy man. While Don is at the dentist, Megan's mother reduces her daughter to a quivering wreck, resulting in Don agreeing to help Megan get the role in order to secure her the happiness she needs to function. Eventually, she gets the role, and after dropping her off at the studio, Don leaves to a bar where he sits by himself and orders a drink. The season ends with a montage of all the main characters having realizations about themselves. Pete, in the aftermath of his affair with Beth, is seen sitting alone on his couch with his headphones on and eyes closed. Peggy, having quickly risen through the ranks in her new career, is shown toasting a single glass of champagne to herself with a smile on her face. A naked Roger looks out the window of his hotel room at the city, in the throes of an LSD trip, and raises both of his arms into the air. And lastly, Don is seen at the bar, where a woman begins to flirt with him and asks if he is alone. He turns and looks at her ambiguously. 5 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

5.5 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

5.6 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

5.7 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

5.8 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

5.9 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

5.10 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

5.11 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

5.12 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

5.13 ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s Dr. David Lavery Summer 2015 

A. R. Ammons (1926-2001) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

W. H. Auden (1907-1973) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Maya Angelou (1928-2014) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

John Berryman (1914-1972) National Book Award Winner: 1969—His Toy, His Dream, His Rest by John Berryman Pulitzer Prize Winner: 1965 77 Dream Songs (Farrar) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979 ) National Book Award Winner: 1970—The Complete Poems by Elizabeth Bishop ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Elizabeth Bishop

Robert Bly (1926- ) National Book Award Winner: 1968—The Light Around the Body by Robert Bly ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

James Dickey (1923-1997) National Book Award Winner: 1966—Buckdancer's Choice: Poems by James Dickey ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Alan Dugan (1923-2003) National Book Award Winner: 1962—Poems by Alan Dugan Pulitzer Prize Winner: 1962 Poems (Yale Univ. Press) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Richard Eberhardt (1904-2005) Pulitzer Prize Winner: 1966 Selected Poems (New Directions) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919- ) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Allen Ginsberg Michael McClure Gary Snyder Jack Kerouac

Allen Ginsberg, Howl (1955) I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated, who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war, who were expelled from the academies for crazy &

Allen Ginsberg, Howl (1955) publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall, who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, . . .

Robert Hayden (1913-1980) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Anthony Hecht (1923-2004) Pulitzer Prize Winners: 1968 The Hard Hours (Atheneum) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Richard Hugo (1923-1982) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Richard Howard (1929- ) Pulitzer Prize Winners: 1970 Untitled Subjects (Atheneum) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Ted Hughes (1930-1998) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Randall Jarrell (1914-1965) National Book Award Winner: 1961—The Woman at the Washington Zoo by Randall Jarrell ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Donald Justice (1925- ) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Galway Kinnell (1927-2014 ) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Kenneth Koch (1925-2002) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Denise Levertov (1923-1997) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Philip Levine (1928- 2015) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Robert Lowell (1917-1977) National Book Award Winner: 1960—Life Studies by Robert Lowell ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Phyllis McGinley (1995-1978) Pulitzer Prize Winner: 1961 Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades (Viking) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

James Merrill (1926-1995) National Book Award Winner: 1967—Nights and Days by James Merrill ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Howard Moss (1922-1987) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Howard Nemerov (1920-1991) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Charles Olson (1910-1970) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

George Oppen (1908-1984) Pulitzer Prize Winner: 1969 Of Being Numerous (New Directions) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974) National Book Award Winner: 1964—Selected Poems by John Crowe Ransom ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) National Book Award Winner: 1965—The Far Field by Theodore Roethke ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Anne Sexton (1928-1974) Pulitzer Prize Winner: 1967 Live or Die (Houghton) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Karl Shapiro (1913-2000) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Louis Simpson (1923-2012) Pulitzer Prize Winner: 1964 At The End Of The Open Road (Wesleyan Univ. Press) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

W. D. Snodgrass (1926-2009) Pulitzer Prize Winner: 1960 Heart's Needle (Knopf) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Gary Snyder (1930- ) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Jack Kerouac’s fictional Gary Snyder: Japhy Ryder in The Dharma Bums

20th Century American Literature I am setting the Way Back Machine for 1975. A much publicized event at the University of Florida would bring some major figures from the Beat Movement--Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure--to campus to honor the great ecologist (and U of F faculty member) Howard T. Odum. It was a fascinating week. I was teaching U of F's first-ever course on Native American Literature, and Snyder, who had made himself available for classroom visits, came to talk to my students. It was a wonderful 50 minutes, and Snyder struck me, as he had when I first saw him in Saint Cloud, Minnesota three years before, as just about the most fully-actualized human being I had ever met. (I should note that this was my LSD period, and I was attentive to such things.) 20th Century American Literature Fall 2012 | Dr. Lavery

20th Century American Literature But the highlight of the week was a poetry reading to be held in a natural amphitheater around a small pond in the heart of the campus. For events such as these, a platform/stage was laid across the water, and Snyder, McClure, and Ginsberg would read from a podium placed upon it to the assembled multitude. A crowd of several hundred filled the outdoor theatre-in-the-round. (A couple of years later I remember hearing Norman Mailer and Hunter Thompson--who pleaded with the crowd to bring him any good drugs they had--read in the same location.) 20th Century American Literature Fall 2012 | Dr. Lavery

The reading would have been memorable in its own right (Snyder is the greatest reader of his own poetry I have ever heard in person)--even without the heckler. Wandering through the audience a very, very drunk guy in his twenties continued to harangue the poets on the pond. It seemed he wanted to be included on the program--wanted to read his poetry.

Finally, Snyder, who was acting as MC for the evening, took the mike and, in an effort to quiet the heckler (where was security?) offered to let him read one poem if that would shut him up. He accepted the offer and made an anything-but-straight-line for the stage over the pond. The aspiring poet took the podium and pulled a large manuscript of his poetry out of his backpack (the size of the tome brought a moan from the audience) and threw it on podium. As he announced to the hostile crowd "I want to read you my first poem, "Getting a B*#@ J%*," he leaned forward, seeking to steady himself, on the podium, and it tumbled, the manuscript with it, into the pond.

With barely a moment's hesitation, Gary Snyder, in what seems now over thirty years later a surreal moment, leaped down into the shallow pond and retrieved the manuscript. Soon after security arrived and hauled the drunk off, and the reading commenced without further incident.

William Stafford (1914-1993) National Book Award Winner: 1963—Traveling Through the Dark by William Stafford ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Mark Strand (1934-2014) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

May Swenson (1913-1989) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Diane Wakoski (1937- ) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

Richard Wilbur (1921- ) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) Pulitzer Prize Winner: 1963 Pictures from Brueghel (New Directions) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

William Carlos Williams, “This is Just to Say” I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably Saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow” so much depends upon a red wheel Barrow glazed with rain Water beside the white chickens.

James Wright (1927-1980) ENGL 6480/7480, Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Poets of the 1960s

ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties   Dr. David Lavery Summer 2015  Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

David Levine’s Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Ted Hughes (1930-1998) Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

At the house where Sylvia Plath committed suicide. ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

The Bell Jar (Larry Peerce, 1979) (1963) Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia (Christine Jeffs, 2003) Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

In the film, Sylvia Plath is, inexplicably, married to Bond, James Bond. Ted Hughes Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Cut What a thrill - My thumb instead of an onion. The top quite gone Except for a sort of hinge Of skin, A flap like a hat, Dead white. Then that red plush. Little pilgrim, The Indian's axed your scalp. Your turkey wattle Carpet rolls Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Cut Straight from the heart. I step on it, Clutching my bottle Of pink fizz.  A celebration, this is. Out of a gap A million soldiers run, Redcoats, every one. Whose side are they on? O my Homunculus, I am ill. I have taken a pill to kill The thin Papery feeling. Saboteur, Kamikaze man - Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Cut The stain on your Gauze Ku Klux Klan Babushka Darkens and tarnishes and when The balled Pulp of your heart Confronts its small Mill of silence How you jump - Trepanned veteran, Dirty girl, Thumb stump. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Daddy You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe   You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time-- Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco seal And a head in the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue In the waters off beautiful Nauset. I used to pray to recover you. Ach, du. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Daddy You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe   You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time-- Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco seal And a head in the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue In the waters off beautiful Nauset. I used to pray to recover you. Ach, du. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Daddy You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe   You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time-- Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco seal And a head in the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue In the waters off beautiful Nauset. I used to pray to recover you. Ach, du. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Daddy You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe   You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time-- Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco seal And a head in the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue In the waters off beautiful Nauset. I used to pray to recover you. Ach, du. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Daddy (continued)   In the German tongue, in the Polish town Scraped flat by the roller Of wars, wars, wars. But the name of the town is common. My Polack friend Says there are a dozen or two. So I never could tell where you Put your foot, your root, I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare. Ich, ich, ich, ich, I could hardly speak. I thought every German was you. And the language obscene Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Daddy (continued) An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew.   The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna Are not very pure or true. With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack I may be a bit of a Jew. I have always been scared of you, With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustache And your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You-- Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Daddy (continued) Not God but a swastika   Not God but a swastika So black no sky could squeak through. Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you. You stand at the blackboard, daddy, In the picture I have of you, A cleft in your chin instead of your foot But no less a devil for that, no not Any less the black man who Bit my pretty red heart in two. I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Daddy (continued) But they pulled me out of the sack,   But they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue. And then I knew what to do. I made a model of you, A man in black with a Meinkampf look And a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do. So daddy, I'm finally through. The black telephone's off at the root, The voices just can't worm through. If I've killed one man, I've killed two-- The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know. Daddy, you can lie back now. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Daddy (continued) There's a stake in your fat black heart   There's a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through. 12 October 1962 Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Lady Lazarus I have done it again. One year in every ten   I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it-- A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine Jew linen. Peel off the napkin O my enemy. Do I terrify?-- Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Lady Lazarus (continued)   The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? The sour breath Will vanish in a day. Soon, soon the flesh The grave cave ate will be At home on me And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty. And like the cat I have nine times to die. This is Number Three. What a trash To annihilate each decade. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Lady Lazarus (continued) What a million filaments.   What a million filaments. The peanut-crunching crowd Shoves in to see Them unwrap me hand and foot-- The big strip tease. Gentlemen, ladies These are my hands My knees. I may be skin and bone, Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman. The first time it happened I was ten. It was an accident. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Lady Lazarus (continued) The second time I meant   The second time I meant To last it out and not come back at all. I rocked shut As a seashell. They had to call and call And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Lady Lazarus (continued)   It's easy enough to do it in a cell. It's easy enough to do it and stay put. It's the theatrical Comeback in broad day To the same place, the same face, the same brute Amused shout: 'A miracle!' That knocks me out. There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart-- It really goes. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Lady Lazarus (continued)   And there is a charge, a very large charge For a word or a touch Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes. So, so, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy. I am your opus, I am your valuable, The pure gold baby That melts to a shriek. I turn and burn. Do not think I underestimate your great concern. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Lady Lazarus (continued) Ash, ash-- You poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--   A cake of soap, A wedding ring, A gold filling. Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air. 23-29 October 1962 Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Morning Song Love set you going like a fat gold watch.   Love set you going like a fat gold watch. The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry Took its place among the elements. Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue. In a drafty museum, your nakedness Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls. I'm no more your mother Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow Effacement at the wind's hand. All night your moth-breath Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen: A far sea moves in my ear. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Morning Song (continued)   One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral In my Victorian nightgown. Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try Your handful of notes; The clear vowels rise like balloons. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Ariel Stasis in darkness. Then the substanceless blue Pour of tor and distances.   God's lioness, How one we grow, Pivot of heels and knees! -- The furrow Splits and passes, sister to The brown arc Of the neck I cannot catch, Nigger-eye Berries cast dark Hooks ---- Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Ariel (continued) Black sweet blood mouthfuls, Shadows.   Black sweet blood mouthfuls, Shadows. Something else Hauls me through air ---- Thighs, hair; Flakes from my heels. White Godiva, I unpeel ---- Dead hands, dead stringencies. And now I Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas. The child's cry Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties  

Sylvia Plath Ariel (continued) Melts in the wall. And I Am the arrow,   Melts in the wall. And I Am the arrow, The dew that flies, Suicidal, at one with the drive Into the red Eye, the cauldron of morning. Sylvia Plath ENGL 6480/7480 | Studies in Contemporary Literature: Mad Men and the Sixties