a found poem: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
I long for February—the damn giant
shutting me up
inside myself—to end.
Even if I am somehow drawn to him
I really don’t want him;
he is a difficult and black curiosity
and the shock
of his unromantic rain
is too keen
as it forcibly kisses my young skin.
Now is the time to tilt the whit
of equilibrium
moving pulling walking
inside my head.
I long to become better—to have
no peculiar mental flaw.
How terrible—living
only in this warm necessary body.
I am carrying light in my arms
but I am also feeling
everything.
From the author: “The Feminine Experience” is part of a series of Sylvia Plath found poems focused on the bipolar experience. I selected a paragraph from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath and used only the words from that paragraph to write the poem. I didn’t allow myself to repeat words, add words, or edit the language for tense or any other consideration. Writing found poetry means being open to the possibilities. It means I didn’t know what “The Feminine Experience” would look like before I started writing it. The poem came to life—individual words turning into lines turning into a full poem—as I stuck to the strict limits of my found poetry process.
Nazifa Islam is the author of the poetry collections Searching for a Pulse (Whitepoint Press) and Forlorn Light: Virginia Woolf Found Poems (Shearsman Books). Her poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, The Missouri Review, Smartish Pace, The Believer, and Beloit Poetry Journal among other publications. She earned her MFA at Oregon State University. You can find her @nafoopal.
Originally published: Tupelo Quarterly
Ok Frank 