My Ariel by Sina Queyras
Winner of The A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry in 2018
A poem-by-poem engagement with Sylvia Plath’s Ariel and the towering mythology surrounding it.
Where were you when you first read Ariel? Who were you? What has changed in your life? In the lives of women? In My Ariel, Sina Queyras barges into one of the iconic texts of the twentieth century, with her own family baggage in tow, exploring and exploding the cultural norms, forms, and procedures that frame and contain the lives of women.
Extract
When I am a bitch I feel in such good company.
Nice girls never gave me anything but trouble,
Eating the ground out from under me, then waving
As I fall. Pity one has to die to see how liberating
Bad can be. But what news had I of my own self?
Words landed like razors, hours tinkled, suitors arrived.
Listen, you’ll think otherwise, but I tell you, betrayal
Is your Get Out of Jail Free card. Take it,
Don’t look back. Of course you will. Look back.
We always do, we who adore the muscle
Of our cashmere cells, a cock that makes
Our knees weak. Darlings, don’t be sweet,
Or serviceable. Don’t accommodate,
Write in blood or don’t bother …
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