For me, the biggest perk of retirement by far is time. Time to spend as you see fit, doling it out for reading, learning, creating, or just being available to my kids.
Lately, I’ve been reading essays and biographical pieces about Sylvia Plath, the brilliant and emotionally troubled American poet and author who took her own life in February of 1963.
Plath’s confessional poetry and prose unpacked gender constraints, patriarchy, and mental health with a raw and emotional acuity that made her a feminist icon. Her passionate and tumultuous marriage and very public divorce from poet Ted Hughes was emotionally distressful and humiliating, but also a catalyst for the most creative period of Plath’s career as a writer.
I haven’t read Plath’s most seminal works, “The Bell Jar” and “Ariel”, but with retirement, I have the opportunity to do so.
I wrote the following poem about Sylvia Plath and used the AI music engine Suno to put my words to song. Here is the link to the song, Trapped Inside the Bell Jar.
Trapped Inside the Bell Jar
Sylvie and Ted lie in a bed
of false hope and betrayal
in poems and prose
where no one knows
veracity from portrayal
A suffocating madness
let’s the dullness settle in
a manic wit, the perfect fit
of grit inside her grin
Trapped inside the Bell Jar
skinned knees pulled to her chest
Cracked, she cried and fell far
too far to be addressed
Her pain becomes obsession
A catalyst of sorts
Words explode
in expressions
of poisonous retorts
She digs her knife
into the headboard
etching hearts into the wood
shavings fall
like paper dolls
of misspent womanhood
Trapped inside the Bell Jar
skinned knees pulled to her chest
Cracked, she cried and fell far
Too far to be addressed
With tape and wet tea towels
sealing windows and locked doors
the sad girl that things happen to
dies on the kitchen floor
“Please call Doctor Horder “
Her note said nothing more
Nick and Frieda safe and sound
Behind their bedroom door
Trapped inside the Bell Jar
skinned knees pulled to her chest
Cracked, she cried and fell far
Too far to be addressed
If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my book, My Paper, My Words: Rantings from a Progressive Boomer and Peeved Parent, from Amazon. And if you feel moved to write a review of the book, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I’d be honored.
My Paper, My Words is a collection of essays, stories, and poems that reflect the challenges of a middle-class husband and father trying to navigate a rapidly changing political, religious, and technological landscape of post-911 America.
bendingtheneedle 