Stella Vine, "The Lodge" (2003)
The Lesbos Lodge
_______________________
“I never told anybody
my life story, though,
or if I did, I made up
a whopper.”—Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
_________________
The aging Feminists—
Gather together for their
Last Séance with the Dead
Sylvia Plath their Goddess—
Venus, Sappho, Lilith and
The Earth Mother
__________________
She’s Ariel—
The Winged Goddess
Lioness Female Principle
She’s also dead—
And there’s no way
Of pretending otherwise
________________
The Bell Jar sums—
Things up with the
Electro-Rosenbergs
Sylvia gets zapped—
With the same shock
Treatment as well
______________________
Plath’s poetry is—
Read as Psychic Theater
Gender Mourning
Plath acts-out and—
Unravels the warfare of
Lesbos Performance USA
_________________________
Males accuse Plath—
Of bogus spirituality
And hysteric melodrama
Others argue that—
Her raging poems are
Just campy gallows humor
____________________
But Plath’s ghost texts—
Have both form & performance
(Old French fournir “to finish”)
Plath’s poems are like—
Her flying dreams full of
Surrealism and collages
_________________
Like Salvador Dali’s—
“Dream Caused by the Flight
of a Bee around a Pomegranate
One Second Before Awakening”
Plath’s poetry is full of global—
Political images of war and
The Nazi Unconscious Plague
_________________
The Lesbos Lodge—
Gathers on Fitzroy Road
Where W.B. Yeats once lived
A blue plaque there—
On its façade commemorates
Both his stay and Sylvia’s
____________________
Representing Sylvia Plath—
Needs to take her cautionary
Warning about Tall Tales
Lingering schools of lit crit—
Meander down confessional
Back alleys & one-way streets
_____________________
Paradoxical notions of—
Self-presentation often hide,
Veil & leave out the real Poet
Three-line tercets can be rather—
Slippery, my dears, as in her
Poems “Purdah” & “Lady Lazarus”
___________________
These three-line tercets—
Can be seen as useful ways
To perform dramatic monologues
Plath represents herself—
In a revealing multiplicity of
Female Mannequin disguises
____________________
Apocalyptic drag isn’t just—
A Lesbos Cabaret Act or Berlin
Burlesque during Weimar
Although actually there’s—
Not that much difference
Between Berlin then & now
_______________________
The red-haired dominatrix—
Avenging in “Lady Lazarus”
Pushes things to the hilt
“And I eat men like air”—
Not just a bitchy declaration
But also suggests dependence
_________________
The Shriek of Gay Identity—
Is only possible because
It’s wrestled from Oppression
It’s a stage-managed act—
A paradoxical performance
Regaining freedom being reborn
_____________________
To eat anything like air—
Is to require it for sustenance
And for survival
Without air or men—
Sylvia Plath couldn’t breathe
Or be iconic female power
__________________
Whether Clytemnestra—
In the “Purdah” performance
Or “Ariel” and “Lady Lazarus”
It’s still a Strip-Tease Act—
Emerging from Mytholmroyd
Burlesque & Drag Routines
________________
Plath and Ted Hughes—
Doing their Touchy Tango
Of Privacy & Exhibitionism
Nothing is truly told—
Lady Lazarus insists that
She’s real but really isn’t
_________________
Sylvia is really dead—
“Do I terrify” doesn’t mean
Anything to anybody anymore
Her nose, eye pits, teeth—
Are just verbiage for named
Body parts and doubts
________________
Invisibility and absence—
Lure the Lesbos Lodge into
Plath’s Legendary Allure
But it’s all poetic artifice—
Self-consciousness constructed
By sexual politics & nostalgia
__________________
Meanwhile within the violent—
Male oppressive world of sexual
Politics the Lesbos Lodge pauses…
The Trope of the Veiled Purdah—
At the heart of Plath’s Narrative
Becomes a Theater of Ambivalence
_____________________
Display and concealment—
Coupled with teasing gestures
Makes Sylvia’s smile enigmatical
Enigmatical, mysterious—
Difficult to read behind her
Slumming to Bethlehem
________________
Sylvia gleams like a mirror—
Reflecting our gaze back at
Ourselves self-confessionally
A way out of hiding—
But also another strong image
Of imprisonment & self-negation
___________________
Principally for Ted Hughes—
His “Birthday Letters” a sudden
Sardonic recognition of himself
Sylvia serves as looking-glass—
Possessing the power of reflecting
Men reduced to ridiculous size
_______________________
Such butchy polyped Assholes—
Admiring themselves in mirrors
Such POMO Patriarchal Pricks!
Plath’s cumulative control—
Of her reproductive organs,
Menstrual cycles & childbirth
________________
These bodily performances—
Outward versions of who really
Controls the Inner Life
Sylvia haunts our culture—
The Ladies of the Lodge ponder
The Tale of the Doll Theater
__________________
Boyish Bildungsroman Lit—
Bores them with all that
Prince Charming shit
Sylvia and Stella Vine—
Plunge into grotesque aesthetics:
Princess Diana, Assia, Jacqueline
______________________
Pregnancy, birth, death—
And motherhood feed cynical
Versions of Male Mythology
Hughes’ “Birthday Letters”—
Trying to reclaim his power
Over Plath’s eidetic imagery
__________________
But his “Howls & Whispers”—
Fail to disguise and reveal
His lies & entanglements
She visits him on busses—
When he takes a bath naked
Testing the water with his toe
__________________
She’s Artemis huntress—
Stalking the Jaguar himself
As he flees Lady Lazarus
She’s the Severed Head—
Haunting him during his
Fishing & hunting trips
______________
Sylvia is Clytemnestra—
The Purdah Panther herself
Pursuing the Male Jaguar
The Lesbos Lodge
_______________________
“I never told anybody
my life story, though,
or if I did, I made up
a whopper.”—Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
_________________
The aging Feminists—
Gather together for their
Last Séance with the Dead
Sylvia Plath their Goddess—
Venus, Sappho, Lilith and
The Earth Mother
__________________
She’s Ariel—
The Winged Goddess
Lioness Female Principle
She’s also dead—
And there’s no way
Of pretending otherwise
________________
The Bell Jar sums—
Things up with the
Electro-Rosenbergs
Sylvia gets zapped—
With the same shock
Treatment as well
______________________
Plath’s poetry is—
Read as Psychic Theater
Gender Mourning
Plath acts-out and—
Unravels the warfare of
Lesbos Performance USA
_________________________
Males accuse Plath—
Of bogus spirituality
And hysteric melodrama
Others argue that—
Her raging poems are
Just campy gallows humor
____________________
But Plath’s ghost texts—
Have both form & performance
(Old French fournir “to finish”)
Plath’s poems are like—
Her flying dreams full of
Surrealism and collages
_________________
Like Salvador Dali’s—
“Dream Caused by the Flight
of a Bee around a Pomegranate
One Second Before Awakening”
Plath’s poetry is full of global—
Political images of war and
The Nazi Unconscious Plague
_________________
The Lesbos Lodge—
Gathers on Fitzroy Road
Where W.B. Yeats once lived
A blue plaque there—
On its façade commemorates
Both his stay and Sylvia’s
____________________
Representing Sylvia Plath—
Needs to take her cautionary
Warning about Tall Tales
Lingering schools of lit crit—
Meander down confessional
Back alleys & one-way streets
_____________________
Paradoxical notions of—
Self-presentation often hide,
Veil & leave out the real Poet
Three-line tercets can be rather—
Slippery, my dears, as in her
Poems “Purdah” & “Lady Lazarus”
___________________
These three-line tercets—
Can be seen as useful ways
To perform dramatic monologues
Plath represents herself—
In a revealing multiplicity of
Female Mannequin disguises
____________________
Apocalyptic drag isn’t just—
A Lesbos Cabaret Act or Berlin
Burlesque during Weimar
Although actually there’s—
Not that much difference
Between Berlin then & now
_______________________
The red-haired dominatrix—
Avenging in “Lady Lazarus”
Pushes things to the hilt
“And I eat men like air”—
Not just a bitchy declaration
But also suggests dependence
_________________
The Shriek of Gay Identity—
Is only possible because
It’s wrestled from Oppression
It’s a stage-managed act—
A paradoxical performance
Regaining freedom being reborn
_____________________
To eat anything like air—
Is to require it for sustenance
And for survival
Without air or men—
Sylvia Plath couldn’t breathe
Or be iconic female power
__________________
Whether Clytemnestra—
In the “Purdah” performance
Or “Ariel” and “Lady Lazarus”
It’s still a Strip-Tease Act—
Emerging from Mytholmroyd
Burlesque & Drag Routines
________________
Plath and Ted Hughes—
Doing their Touchy Tango
Of Privacy & Exhibitionism
Nothing is truly told—
Lady Lazarus insists that
She’s real but really isn’t
_________________
Sylvia is really dead—
“Do I terrify” doesn’t mean
Anything to anybody anymore
Her nose, eye pits, teeth—
Are just verbiage for named
Body parts and doubts
________________
Invisibility and absence—
Lure the Lesbos Lodge into
Plath’s Legendary Allure
But it’s all poetic artifice—
Self-consciousness constructed
By sexual politics & nostalgia
__________________
Meanwhile within the violent—
Male oppressive world of sexual
Politics the Lesbos Lodge pauses…
The Trope of the Veiled Purdah—
At the heart of Plath’s Narrative
Becomes a Theater of Ambivalence
_____________________
Display and concealment—
Coupled with teasing gestures
Makes Sylvia’s smile enigmatical
Enigmatical, mysterious—
Difficult to read behind her
Slumming to Bethlehem
________________
Sylvia gleams like a mirror—
Reflecting our gaze back at
Ourselves self-confessionally
A way out of hiding—
But also another strong image
Of imprisonment & self-negation
___________________
Principally for Ted Hughes—
His “Birthday Letters” a sudden
Sardonic recognition of himself
Sylvia serves as looking-glass—
Possessing the power of reflecting
Men reduced to ridiculous size
_______________________
Such butchy polyped Assholes—
Admiring themselves in mirrors
Such POMO Patriarchal Pricks!
Plath’s cumulative control—
Of her reproductive organs,
Menstrual cycles & childbirth
________________
These bodily performances—
Outward versions of who really
Controls the Inner Life
Sylvia haunts our culture—
The Ladies of the Lodge ponder
The Tale of the Doll Theater
__________________
Boyish Bildungsroman Lit—
Bores them with all that
Prince Charming shit
Sylvia and Stella Vine—
Plunge into grotesque aesthetics:
Princess Diana, Assia, Jacqueline
______________________
Pregnancy, birth, death—
And motherhood feed cynical
Versions of Male Mythology
Hughes’ “Birthday Letters”—
Trying to reclaim his power
Over Plath’s eidetic imagery
__________________
But his “Howls & Whispers”—
Fail to disguise and reveal
His lies & entanglements
She visits him on busses—
When he takes a bath naked
Testing the water with his toe
__________________
She’s Artemis huntress—
Stalking the Jaguar himself
As he flees Lady Lazarus
She’s the Severed Head—
Haunting him during his
Fishing & hunting trips
______________
Sylvia is Clytemnestra—
The Purdah Panther herself
Pursuing the Male Jaguar
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