sylvia
there's something about posthumously published art that doesn't fully sit right with me. (of course, i would read someone's journal if i found it abandoned at a bus stop, so i really can't really take a side.)

elliott smith was working on a new album when he killed himself this week. like some of plath's poetry, i wouldn't be surprised if the inevitable posthumous release of his album is riddled with warning signs, depression, suicide. granted, much of his work produced in his lifetime had that stuff, too. i don't understand suicide. similarly, i don't understand how anyone could really intend for something to be published, applauded after their death. i do, however, understand the need for leaving something great and beautiful and poignant.

whether or not plath intended it to be shared, we are by far the richer for having "ariel."

Ariel
Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.

God's lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees! -- The furrow

Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,

Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks --

Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else

Hauls methrough air --
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.

White
Godiva, I unpeel --
Dead hands, dead stringencies.

And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child's cry

Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow,

The dew that flies
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red

Eye, the cauldron of morning.