i'm new, forgive me.

[Abigail Gentry]

i should be studying algebra two, but nah..

Last night, in the wee hours of the night (12:00, because i'm tough like that) i read "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath. talk about intense, eh? i highly recommend reading it once and daring in the thought. 

my questions:

does she hate her father?

does she love her father?

why compare him to this cult of people?

could we today, ever understand this feeling? in this little world where no ones starves, troubles are coaxed through by therapist, community, friends, and teachers.

will our poetry suffer? will the melodramatic themes go away, replaced with what we call quote unquotes problems.

oh no, what college am i going to attend? oh no, what is my major going to be? oh, i'm 13 and haven't had my first kiss. am i a werido?

really? ....really?

 *in background someone scream digression*

i'm sorry my dears, i would continue on but.

my soundtrack is over, and there is nothing more for me to say. 

think about it though, next time your life seems tough; you could have killed your father. you could have killed two.

ach du, daddy daddy, i'm through.

[Abigail Gentry]

well put my friend,

[Sarah H]

I believe one of the great beauties of poetry is that, when done well, it can catch ambiguities.  I think the speaker of the poem hates and loves her father. 

On the question of suffering and the quality of poetry, I would have to disagree with your premise.  There is plenty of suffering to go around in this world.  And Plath herself suffered things that people still suffer in our own neighbourhoods: miscarried pregnancies, marital infidelity, depression. 

And anyway, even if Sylvia Plath did win the "suffering Olympics" and wrote better poetry than most because she suffered more than most (which I don't think is fair to say), we can still hope for great poetry that arises from intensity of joy, and not just intensity of sadness.