Lulu: In a rut

Although sunshine has broken through my cloud of tired with Savanna suddenly choosing to sleep through the night, I'm in another kind of rut--literary. I'm still making my way through Gone With the Wind, and although I like what I'm reading when I'm reading it, I just don't really feel that jazzed about it. I might need to wait a while and try again later, or I might just break up with that book. It's not bringing much to the "relationship". Apparently, I'm not either.

I'm also trying to read the newest Mary Higgins Clark book, but I'm beginning to tire of the main character always being an elegant lady in a cashmere robe, pouring some champagne to go with her gourmet Italian dinner, putting her hair in a loose chignon and reading some legal documents in her armchair before she retires for the night, thinking of her newest love interest, usually a Nicholas-something of stubborn Irish descent. (Mary, I like you, but I'd love a story about a sloppy girl who's dating a short, squat man with nothing to claim except a great personality.) Hm. That came out of left field!

Aunt Rae, I love what you said about Emily Dickinson--that her poems seemed both "deep and shallow" to you. Sometimes I think of it like this: Good poetry beautifies and brings to notice things less-noticed, but still important. I don't know if that makes sense to the rest of you.
And bad poetry? I don't know what to say about bad poetry, because I feel like I myself am not a good poet (yet). I do know that an English teacher (my favorite teacher, and my favorite subject) said to me that "the worst writing is that which is pretentious." I think we do pretend to some extent when we write, but I think what she meant is that it's bad writing when you aren't being yourself or writing things that matter to you. Anyway, I feel like I'm writing myself into knots here and not making much sense. Let me know if I am making any sense!

I read a poem today by Sylvia Plath. It's hard for me to know whether I like her poetry, because my impression of her poetry is so wrapped up in her very sad life and death. I really can't decide if I like her work or not. Sometimes it's really dark and depressing, and sometimes it seems like she just sat around feeling sorry for herself. Maybe that's really unsympathetic of me. Anyway, the poem I read had several lines that I liked a lot, just for their literary beauty, and I liked the poem until its really sad and stupid ending.

Two Sisters of Persephone

Two girls there are: within the house
One sits; the other, without.
Daylong a duet of shade and light
Plays between these.
(I liked these lines because I can already see these two girls, and I like thinking of the literal light of indoors and outdoors, not just their personalities, which I assume she's really referring to.)

In her dark wainscoted room
The first works problems on
A mathematical machine.
Dry ticks mark time
(I only included that stanza because I love the last line spoken aloud. I like that each word--in that last line, that is--is one syllable, so when you say it, it's similar to the ticking of a clock in that you are saying one word per second. Dry. Ticks. Mark. Time. And I like that the last word of the line repeats the sound of the first word.)

And the next stanza begins with the line:
As she calculates each sum.
(Which I think is interesting because there's this little pause in between the two stanzas, which reminds me of doing mental math, and then that next line is kind of lumbering to read, which makes me think--again--of doing math and slowly getting the answer. It comes slowly to me, at least.)

Anyway, as far as the "stupid" ending, Plath likens the two girls to a flower that blooms and (I got confused as far as what the other plant thing was) another that doesn't and is worm-infested, saying in the end:
The other, [in this case, the girl doing her math inside in the dark while her sister is outside laying in the grass being lazy and enjoying the sun and grass and poppies] wry virgin to the last,
Goes graveward with flesh laid waste,
Worm-husbanded, yet no woman.

It just got on my nerves. I think I took it too seriously, but Sylvia Plath obviously took herself quite seriously. I just felt bad for the sister doing math--because what's wrong with that?--and annoyed with the sister in the grass outside. "Goes graveward with flesh laid waste" why? Because she was smart and lonely and shy? Because she didn't bloom? Anyway. I like that I did have a strong reaction to the poem. I feel like a lot of poems I could care less about, and so when I find some that I like, or even some that make me mad, I'm happy. (Happy to find a poem that made me mad? Hahhaha....I realize that's a bit of a contradiction.)