. . . With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Tarot pack and my Tarot pack . . . (at minute 1:43)
See more Sylvia Plath videos here (then search on her name).
Added: It turns out that the original manuscript of Sylvia Plath’s book, Ariel, was ordered according to the Tarot and Qabala—with the first twenty-two poems associated with the Major Arcana and the next ten with the ten pips and sephiroth followed by the four ranks of the Court and then the four suits. This ordering is now apparent in Ariel: The Restored Edition (2004). All of this is explained in an article by Julia Gordon-Bramer for the journal Plath Profiles. Download a pdf of Gordon-Bramer’s article here.
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May 22, 2008 at 5:05 am
Shower
SYLVIA PLATH
Ennui
Tea leaves thwart those who court catastrophe,
designing futures where nothing will occur:
cross the gypsy’s palm and yawning she
will still predict no perils left to conquer.
Jeopardy is jejune now: naïve knight
finds ogres out-of-date and dragons unheard
of, while blasé princesses indict
tilts at terror as downright absurd.
The beast in Jamesian grove will never jump,
compelling hero’s dull career to crisis;
and when insouciant angels play God’s trump,
while bored arena crowds for once look eager,
hoping toward havoc, neither pleas nor prizes
shall coax from doom’s blank door lady or tiger.
May 22, 2008 at 5:27 am
Shower
I found this after listening to the above. I thought you might enjoy it too.
Thanx for posting this.
Shower
May 22, 2008 at 7:05 am
marygreer
Shower –
Thank you for sharing this other Plath poem which I don’t remember having read before.
May 23, 2008 at 6:03 am
Shower
Yes, apparently it was found by a student unpublished. It’s been published by an online journal of literature and arts, Blackbird. As I say, I commented with it as a thank you for posting the audio of her. It was compelling and almost eerie hearing her read her poem.
May 23, 2008 at 8:23 am
marygreer
“Daddy” has long been a favorite of mine. I even memorized parts of it in college.
May 23, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Elizabeth Genco
Yes, thank you for finding that – sent me off on a poetry journey through YouTube for about an hour last night. There is also some great Anne Sexton on YouTube, and – be still my beating heart – Yeats!!
(Which reminds me of a question I keep meaning to ask – I’ve heard it casually mentioned in books and whatnot that Yeats probably had a hand in helping Pixie & Waite w/the deck. So tantalizing… I want details!! And yet, I can find none. Do you know if that’s true and where I could find more info?)
May 24, 2008 at 1:22 am
marygreer
There’s no substantial proof of that and Yeats was not really a tarot expert. He usually had others do readings for him. Other possibilities include Florence Farr (who taught tarot for GD members) and Waite’s good friend, Arthur Machen, with whom he worked on writing the book The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal which was published the same year as the tarot.
July 1, 2014 at 8:54 pm
Isabella Mori
this scholar doubts that the ariel poem were based on the tarot http://ann.skea.com/Arielindex.html. in “daddy” she talks about “tarock”, which is a game that is/was played quite a bit in the countries of the alps – austria, bavaria and switzerland.
July 2, 2014 at 11:05 am
mkg
Actually the poem says ‘tarot’ not ‘tarock’. Also, it is part of a phrase that mentions of her gypsy ancestress and ‘weird luck.’ If Path wanted us to make a mental association with the card game rather than fortune telling then she hasn’t achieved her aim very well through this juxtaposition of images.