Sylvia Plath reading 'Daddy'
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ต.ค. 2024
- You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time -
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one grey toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat moustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You -
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute,
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.
If I've killed one man, I've killed two -
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
I get always sad when I hear she said "I was ten when they buried you, At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you."
The anger so clear. Especially her voice. Anger is usually expressed loudly with vulgarity. She's maintains control and wins the moment.
Yes, the repressed rage in her voice is immensely powerful.
I've read a lot about Sylvia Plath over many years and have noticed how little information there is about her father. The lack of anecdotal accounts about him makes me wonder if there was serious trouble in the household. I've read that Otto Plath took care of the grocery shopping, something I would think unusual for the 1930's for a married man whose wife, I believe, was a stay-at-home-mother at that time and who was busy with his teaching work. Was he being helpful or controlling? Not only Sylvia, but her mother said little or nothing about Otto Plath and Sylvia's brother Warren never gave interviews. Why so little said about Otto Plath? The lack of stories about Otto Plath makes me wonder if there was something wrong. Sylvia Plath lived in a time when people didn't talk about family problems. Even in her fiction which is strongly autobiographical at times there's very little about a father . Had she lived longer maybe Sylvia Plath would have felt more at ease about talking in detail about her father, whatever he was like.
@@andrewbrendan1579 her father died before she was 10. the poem is her anger at his death and her not being able to know him or anything about where he grew up or his past. theres no daddy issues here, none that extend beyond his death when she was about 9/10 or so
Its very much to do with rhythm of the poem that makes it angry.
Ich ich ich ich
""At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you. (...)
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue".
Always hits hard.
The next part gets me
"And then I knew what to do / I made a model of you/ a man in black with a mein Kampf look and the love of the rack and the screw / and I said I do, I do.
Thank you so much for not subjecting the rhythms of this performance to slow boring classical tunes or boring lift music. So we can concentrate on the masterful marriage of imagery besides other literary devices, her great skill with a microphone (softened t and s sounds, breath in all the right spaces) the emotion she portrays in that moreish voice; so much life experience, so much meaning, almost enough to forget that she Was an actual person who farted and drank and laughed, who might not have liked us that much or might have been a best friend.
Agreed. As she said, the Ariel poems are poems to be read out loud. They are so musical; they need no instrumentals. Lesser known poems like Lesbos and The Tour sound like catchy punk-pop or even hip-hop when read out loud. I'm not a fan of hip-hop but hopefully you catch my drift. Plath was a genius at rhythm and cadence.
th-cam.com/video/oftyH-Efpew/w-d-xo.html check this out.. “Ariel” is super musical. I always thought so
Well said. You string words just like her.
when her voice breaks at 'gastly statue with one gray toe big as a frisco seal'...
Yes I think she was about to cry.
What a beautiful piece of art! she's getting rid of the imagine of Elecktra and starts her next stage to reach the top of her poetry, the annihilation of the self in the poem.❤
"If I've killed one man, and I've killed two -the vampire who said he was you & drank my blood for a year, 7 years, if you want to know. " she deserved so much better than Ted.
Is that a slur on Ted Hughes? What is your evidence?
i thought it was about her stepfather
Can you explain what these lines mean?
@@FullMetalMachine the lines prior suggest it’s about Ted imo. “At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you… and then I knew what to do. I made a model of you.” She married Ted at the age of 23/24. She “made a model” of him as in she chose to love someone like her dad (“Every woman adores a Fascist”). “And I said I do, I do” is a reference to marriage and wedding vows, again suggesting Ted. “The vampire who said he was you / And drank my blood for a year, / Seven years if you want to know”. Her and Ted were married for over 6 years, together for around seven.
@@jorgegomez9275 correct!! very well put!
Sylvia Plath was so talented! Loved her work.
Wish you a very Happy Birthday Sylvia. We're so glad to find you. Maybe one day I'll dedicate my book to you.
Courtney love reciting daddy for Mickey mouse club in 70s makes me smile every time I'm reminded of this gem
I just love poetry that rhymes!!
So true prettypristinepoetry8984
"I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die and get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack, and they stuck me together with glue." that is so sad she deserved so much better
I have been listening to this ,,album'' for a long time now and i just found out it's on spotify. I have never been so happy about something that i wrote in a youtube comment section.
When I was in London two and a half years ago, I spent a long afternoon in the neighborhood of your two last addresses there. Like a creep, I was sitting on a bench in a park and looking at things and people. Imagining I was you.
The line "Ich,ich -- I could barely speak" hits in a different way when she says it -- she literally cannot pronounce the "ch" in "ich".
I also noticed the prevalency of the word "do" -- which Plath obviously knew means ''you" in German. You, you, not you! Just my thoughts -- I never saw this anywhere.
One of my favorite poems it even inspired me to write a poem of the same meter ❤
I want to be a poet one day...
You don't become a poet one day. Start today and work towards it, it is literally art just like drawing, you have to practice it and just be it, no wanting or hoping.
@@twanvanderdonk2504 Truth.
you are a poet buddy
Start writing and you are a poet ❤
Me too, me too!
No vulgarity. That’s the beauty
Vulgarity can be beautiful, too.
also this poem is routinely noted for use of arguably vulgar holocaust imagery and allusions
@@richardenglish2195thank you
me quito el sombrero, man.
Me and my daddy issues listening to this like 👁👄👁
When I first heard this, I was astonished how English she sounded. Expected more of a NA accent.
A genius
2:14 (timestamp for the start of the last six stanzas)
Anyone here listening in 2023 😂😂
yes.. i do...😊
Yep. June 2023. 2am.
June 22, 2023 8:30am
Aug 20, 2023, 12:12am
September 9th 2023
I been listening to this since y when I was 15
Daddy issues : *level 9999999+*
I like your pfp :)
Ted was a monster. Sylvia LOVED her Daddy. I thought I married a man like my Daddy too. I did not. I love my Daddy but I no longer love that man who hurt me.
sylvia didn’t want to marry a man like her daddy
I think the woman who abandoned her children is the monster.
@@heldinahtmlhell if you’re implying sylvia plath was the monster then please, go educate yourself out of whatever delusion you’re in because that’s not true at all.
@@charleyburns8947 I'm not implying it, I'm stating it. She was.
As a simpleton, I’ll never put her genius or her depth of understanding of life (at such a young age) or her sophistication and maturity or her naivety and innocense into word, but she was obsessed with “ time”: Always reminding herself that the future is not real, or the past, but that she has only present moment, and so she must live every day to her fullest. She was kept driven. She was 18 then, and such a sophisticated concept must have been more nagging than comforting to her.
She worried about nuclear ( atomic) war in her teens and the plight of the world. She hated that she had to fight boys off, and go home “ unsatisfied” while they, grabbed what they could and went home “without a conscience.”. She hated being a girl… fighting off boys… trying to stay a virgin, while the boys did not. She also wanted a boy who loved her mind, not just her body. She wanted also, to be able to be interested in men without the man taking her interest as sexual. She “ loved people” and wanted to get to know as many human beings as deeply as possible, but she found it hard with men. What woman c
couldn’t relate to that observation even today? She felt stifled.
She looked at a white fence and called it a “ stiff ruffle”. She looked at the moon and called it a “ hood of bone”. I look at the moon and call it the moon!
She was of a very special mind. Her mistake was marrying another great mind- or poet. She needed someone to keep her grounded. He wasn’t it.
sad masterpiece
the villagers are dancing and stamping on you
Reminds me of Anais Nin’s never ending but conscious seeking of her father
Sylvia is all left
Was she talking about 7 years with Ted Hughes? Or about him in any way?
I’m here in 2024
beautiful.
Yo she’s a true edge queen.
Thank you so much 🧡
Who are watching this in 2024😂😅
👇
BEST PART. WHITE WITCH YES.
she almost took my depressed friend with her 30yrs later
Was that, kind of a realization? She always talks good about Ted H. in her diaries but in here, she says 7 years with a vampire. Hmm. Hmmmmm.
He manipulated and omitted a lot of what she wrote about him in her diary so I wouldn’t be surprised
Yes, Ted destroyed a lot of the content of her journals, thinking of his career. The lover he deserted Sylvia for also committed suicide later.
As a Polish person, I'm confused.
Have an agfaire yourself. You are a strong intelligent woman. Who cqre
MOCKINGBIRD MONTH
She is laughing, Enow, as she reads us this Waste -
Have you no sense of the Lady’s mocking tone? Misconstrue
Her of Taroc, O Drowning, Hanging Man: Taste
Of nothing Gold left Sacred, to you, to you, to you?
@David Mehnert? Is that by chance from _Birthday Letters?_
get back to you 2024\10\13
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna, is not very pure or true.
damn she is good but sad
كاجولوووه روشنوووه
اوه اوه عاوز البت تموت لما تشوفنى
So sensual a voice...
Feminist entitlement expressed in deluded veiled misandry, and beautifully so.
It's about her abusive husband.
We all hear a "slightly" different poem depending on where we're coming from.
So entitled 😣 how dare she be upset her father was a nazi and her husband abused her and had affairs, and she was institutionalized and had her brains zapped until she was dead inside. What a big baby. How dare she complain that the man who raised her was evil and then died when she was ten, leaving her with no closure. How dare she write about the way her father left an empty hole in her heart that she thought she could fill with a husband, only to realize he was just as bad.
you wouldn't know art if it hit you with a frying pan
@@benjaminsamaha4687Just to clarify, her father was not a Nazi, he was a professor.