Laying Tulips On Plath's Grave

Isn't it astounding to know that when "The Colossus" came out, Plath was admonished for being a hack, a wannabe, and a never-will-be? We know now that she is one of the titans of the poetry world, but back then her womanizing husband, Ted Hughes, got all the attention and awards.

What's really tragic is that she killed herself shortly after penning her opus, Ariel. You've all heard the story, tape along the door jams, head in the oven, children safe and sound asleep. But I think what's really telling is the poem, "Tulips."
"The tulips are too excitable,it is winter here." --first line of "Tulips" by Sylvia Plath.
Just the first line has layers of meaning. The juxtaposition of excited tulips with winter time is startling. The rhythm of the first line is intense. Imagery is prevalent. Of course, this was written about her experience with electroshock therapy, but it's written in such a symbolic way that it challenges our minds to grasp her mental landscape. She leads us into jungles of images, the white walls of the hospital, the excited tulips, the ever-seeing eye that must "take it all in," her body as a "pebble", and the red, red tulips that hurt her eyes; nowhere in literature or poetry has such anguish come across so vividly. Indeed, there is no melodrama in this poem, in fact, she's rather jaded, a rarity amongst modern, nostalgia-ridden poets, and her neat lines will stand for centuries to come. You can feel her life-force bleed through the ink. Maybe that was the problem, she saved none of herself for herself. Or maybe she had a serotonin imbalance.

I would be so lucky as to write a single poem that would be published in a respectable journal; Sylvia Plath had a whole book published. It hurts me to know that she had had enough with life, with her small failures, with her marital pain, as to remove herself entirely from this world. At least she left us a suicide note: the stanzas in Ariel.

This entry is a symbolic tulip I leave  on Sylvia Plath's grave; a token of devotion, a coin into a wishing well, wishing her peace wherever she is, that she might spark a moment of consciousness again and know that in 2011 people are deeply moved by her words and her life. A life can die, but not a legacy.