Stings (1962) by Sylvia Plath | Analysis & Commentary

Welcome to Ear Read This! I’m Ash, and on this channel I combine in-depth literary analysis with casual book reviews and discussion of a wide range of texts from Ovid to Sylvia Plath. Along with detailed episodes of the ERT podcast you’ll find reading updates, reactions to bookish news and my daily Poem of the Day series. Special areas of interest include Plath, Scottish (and in particular, Edinburgh) literature, Shakespeare and bird books. S3E92 Ash is joined by Patricia Grisafi to discuss 'Stings' by Sylvia Plath, the third poem in her Bee Sequence. Tune in for a conversation about red comets, queen bees, and scapegoats. Follow Trish on Twitter here: @PatriciaGrisafi And visit her website: http://www.patriciagrisafi.com/about-1 Stings Bare-handed, I hand the combs. The man in white smiles, bare-handed, Our cheesecloth gauntlets neat and sweet, The throats of our wrists brave lilies. He and I Have a thousand clean cells between us, Eight combs of yellow cups, And the hive itself a teacup, White with pink flowers on it, With excessive love I enameled it Thinking 'Sweetness, sweetness.' Brood cells gray as the fossils of shells Terrify me, they seem so old. What am I buying, wormy mahogany? Is there any queen at all in it? If there is, she is old, Her wings torn shawls, her long body Rubbed of its plush ---- Poor and bare and unqueenly and even shameful. I stand in a column Of winged, unmiraculous women, Honey-drudgers. I am no drudge Though for years I have eaten dust And dried plates with my dense hair. And seen my strangeness evaporate, Blue dew from dangerous skin. Will they hate me, These women who only scurry, Whose news is the open cherry, the open clover? It is almost over. I am in control. Here is my honey-machine, It will work without thinking, Opening, in spring, like an industrious ****** To scour the creaming crests As the moon, for its ivory powders, scours the sea. A third person is watching. He has nothing to do with the bee-seller or with me. Now he is gone In eight great bounds, a great scapegoat. Here is his slipper, here is another, And here the square of white linen He wore instead of a hat. He was sweet, The sweat of his efforts a rain Tugging the world to fruit. The bees found him out, Molding onto his lips like lies, Complicating his features. They thought death was worth it, but I Have a self to recover, a queen. Is she dead, is she sleeping? Where has she been, With her lion-red body, her wings of glass? Now she is flying More terrible than she ever was, red Scar in the sky, red comet Over the engine that killed her ---- The mausoleum, the wax house. Title Music: 'Not Drunk' by The Joy Drops. All other music by Epidemic Sound. @earreadthis [email protected] facebook.com/earreadthis