To Sylvia Plath
By Jennifer Franklin
February 11, 2025 Each year when the sharp threat of snow pierces me as I walk the dog, I think of you. Of your impossible words piled on the desk waiting to be pressed between the covers of your last book, waiting in your bedroom while you fiddled with the gas. I refuse to believe this is what you wanted. Certain he would find you— save you from the fire in your brain. Unappreciated, you made him what he was. Wounded, abandoned with endless childcare. Insatiable need of babies crying into the harsh morning light. They take and take until there is nothing recognizable left. I know this can drive you to a room full of weapons— knives, flame, gas until you think, in sleep-deprived delirium that they are calling offering oblivion— a lover’s hand on your neck.
Jennifer Franklin is the author of three poetry collections, including If Some God Shakes Your House (Four Way, 2023), finalist for the Paterson Prize and the Julie Suk Award. Her work has been commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum, and published in American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, “poem-a-day” on poets.org, and Poetry in Motion. She won a Pushcart Prize, a NYFA grant, and a CRCF Award. She is cofounder of Words Like Blades reading series.
Last Call / Submit by 02/14/2026 to Sonnet Boom: Love Poems for Miami, a poetry contest brought to you by SWWIM, Elevate Miami, and O, Miami. Youth and adult categories. Cash prizes. Free to enter. See Submittable for complete guidelines.
02/12 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Allison Blevins & local poets Carolina Hospital, Nicole Hospital-Medina, and Holly Iglesias / The BBar at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free
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a coda to Morning Song. Brava.
You’ve captured what I’ve so often tried to imagine and what many of us know too well. Those dark, desperate days and her isolation inside that terrible marriage. Thank you!