[credit | karen @ i-doll] I probably scared you all for a little while there, but after an inadvertent and lengthy hiatus from blogging, I'm back (and as overenthusiastic as ever)! I'm returning with a bookish tag post, an endeavor made possible by the inimitable Alyssa @ The Devil Orders Takeout.
(I have a bit of a backlog, so I'm going to try and spread out tags and do them one at a time! They're also going to be super out of order.)
Presenting the Bedtime
#LitLove is our chance to spout our love for the written word in all its forms, and it happens once every two months. It was born from a feverish Twitter fangirling session (as so many good things are) and then put into action. We've got a veritable army of ideas cooking, and we plan to spotlight everything from authors to tropes in the future.Previously, we've featured brilliant writers Kate DiCamillo, Roald Dahl, William Shakespeare, and Edgar Allan Poe. Today we're taking the series in yet another direction by featuring one of America's most intriguing female writers, Sylvia Plath.
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Sylvia Plath was one of the most dynamic and admired poets of the twentieth century. By the time she took her life at the age of thirty, Plath already had a following in the literary community. In the ensuing years her work attracted the attention of a multitude of readers, who saw in her singular verse an attempt to catalogue despair, violent emotion, and obsession with death. [...] Intensely autobiographical, Plath's poems explore her own mental anguish, her troubled marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes, her unresolved conflicts with her parents, and her own vision of herself. [...] [Joyce Carol Oates] wrote that Plath's best-known poems, "many of them written during the final, turbulent weeks of her life, read as if they've been chiseled, with a fine surgical instrument, out of arctic ice."I was first introduced to Sylvia Plath's work when I read her first and only novel, The Bell Jar, for a literature honors project at school during freshman year. (You might have read my rave review of that particular book.) When I learned that she was primarily a poet, I immediately set out to read some of her poetry. This new interest came at a particularly opportune time, since I was growing more and more interested in writing poetry myself. I think reading Sylvia Plath has really influenced the way I look at and approach poetry, and I know it will continue to do so in the future.
I have done it again. / One year in every ten / I manage it——While the biblical Lazarus is brought to life by Jesus, Lady Lazarus resurrects herself without any outside help ("I have done it again"). It's a power that she has used before and one that gives her a sort of authority over everyone around her. I personally can kind of feel that here, in these lines that feel at once weary and triumphant.
O my enemy. / Do I terrify?——The boldly feminine yet undeniably threatening persona of "Lady Lazarus" has a certain deadly magnetism to her. She's secure in her ability to rise from the dead, which gives her a fearsome kind of confidence. But she's also very aware of the scrutiny she gets because of that ability. She regards those who scrutinize her as 'enemies,' and she wants to know: are you afraid of me?
Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air.These last three lines make up one of the most iconic poem endings you'll ever read, period. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, my favorite part of this poem. The rhyme is incredibly powerful without being tacky in the least, and it's undoubtedly chilling. Also, GIRL POWER.
I inhabit / The wax image of myself, a doll's body.There's so much wonderful subtext here. This line pretty much speaks for itself—it has so many dimensions, and I really think it opens up new areas for interpretation every single time one reads it.
What large eyes the dead have!This line in and of itself is wonderfully arresting in its simultaneous playfulness and morbidity. I love it. To me, it feels like a play off what the heroine tells the wolf disguised as her grandmother in the Red Riding Hood fairytale: "What large teeth you have!" That innocent fascination, combined with the darkness of bringing up the dead, is a beautifully clever contrast.
We grow. / It hurts at first. The red tongues will teach the truth."The red tongues" in this case is taken to mean fire, which I think implies a sort of healing and reaching upwards that the narrator achieves through a lot of sacrifice and hardship. I love this notion a lot, and I keep it very close to my heart.
I am lost, I am lost, in the robes of all this light.I think this is a gorgeously cathartic ending for the poem, and it's one that really rings true to me. The narrator has had a hard time coming into her own throughout the piece, and so this kind of light-filled 'ascension' feels like a wonderful release for her.
Hello all! The gloriously witty and always-insightful Heather from Sometimes I'm a Story was kind enough to bestow upon yours truly the Infinity Dreams Award. Thank you so much, Heather! Here's my response:
Rules:
Thank and follow the blog that nominated you. Tell us eleven facts about yourself. Answer the questions that were set for you to answer. Nominate 11 bloggers and set questions for them.
Eleven facts I love anime and people seem to forget that a lot. (Fairy Tail / Kuroko no Basket / Sword
I'm very excited to have a new poem up today in Textploit, which is a gorgeous online publication run by and for Very Cool Young Creatives age twenty or under. (I totally made up that label, but I like to think that we're all in some kind of not-so-secret club.) Textploit has published several brilliant young writers that I really admire, including Meggie Royer, Lydia Havens, and Lucy Wainger. Plus, they've also published my ridiculously talented writer friends Rona and Margaret. Who wouldn't be thrilled to be in
Oh no, summer's all but gone! I must say August was rather languid—but in a good way, I think (I hope!).
I was also kind of good at Twitter this month. (Or I was bad at life. Your pick.)
So I set out to type "fair" and automatically typed "fairy" instead. This is all you need to know about my personality. — christina im (@_christinaim) July 31, 2015
On the blog Typing "enoughly" into a Google Doc = probably a sign I need to go to
Hey all! Alyssa (from The Devil Orders Takeout, naturally) created the awesomeness that is the Milk Tea Book Tag and tagged me for it, because milk tea is a Prominent Thing in Hong Kong (where Alyssa lives). And, as Alyssa points out, why should only western delicacies be subjects for book tags?
I think this is very, very cool, although I've never tried milk tea. I should get on that. But first! Here's my response to the tag.
Tea: the foundation of your reading life
Another mini-review—this one goes over Virginia Boecker's YA debut The Witch Hunter, which I think could have been a lot better.
Release Date: June 2, 2015 Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Category: YA Genre(s): Fantasy, alternate history Pages: 368 (hardcover) Format/Source: Paperback ARC, Received from publisher (Many thanks to Little, Brown!) Find the Book: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository Your greatest enemy isn't what you fight, but what you fear.
Elizabeth Grey is one of the king's best witch
xv. intersectional feminist. writes poems about love & violence. writes star-dusted prose. lives for the obnoxiously artsy & the sharply observant. thinks out loud about stories & their aftermaths here at fairy skeletons.