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Poet: Sylvia Plath
Poem: Black Rook In Rainy Weather
Volume: The Collected Poems
Year: Published/Written in 1956
Comment 5 of 5, added on November 16th, 2005 at 3:05 AM.
The main feeling I got from this poem was the desire Sylvia Plath had for moments of meaning, moments of insight and and inspiration. Sylvia was a woman who lived on writing, a vast majority of this i think, confessional poerty. She was a woman who lived by writing in poetry about her feelings, her experiences, her thoughts and moods. She expressed herself through her poetry. The main idea that was presented to me from this poem was Sylvia lived, stayed, for the moments of inspiration. She could not survive on just the ordinary, just the nice and simple, or as she saw it mundane. She needed moments of understanding, she needed more than normal, more than what she saw as mediocrity almost. She needed inspiration, or she felt that life was barren. This poem was almost a fight with herself, at the beginning she denies the fact that she is waiting for something, "I do not expect a miracle, or an accident." She is trying to kid herself, trying to control her impulses and wants. She says "Let spotted leaves fall as they fall, without ceremony or portent," which is metaphorically her saying "I will just let things be, not try to change or act, or want more." The large BUT comes through however, when she talks of how she desires some backtalk from the mute sky. She can't control herself, even when she tries and wants to. She can't reatin that normalcy, that lack of control and longing. From that point onwards her denail slips away slowly, and she speaks only of the inspiration she is looking for, of "whatever angel may choose to flare. She finally finds that moment she's been waiting for, of understanding, of almost momentary fulfillment. The trouble is, she knows it's just momentary. She knows soon enough she will descend to that low mood, and that she will once again have to wait for another moment of inspiration.
laura from Australia
Comment 4 of 5, added on November 5th, 2005 at 10:52 AM.
In an age without many superstitions, we look to nature and the world around us for an explanation of our lives; in any event, we see only science's cause and effect--life is merely the combination of chemicals in the correct amounts, leaves fall because of the natural processes associated with the changing of the seasons, and a black rook arranges its feathers in the rain . . . it's all natural and easily explained by science. But there are many things that science cannot explain, and many longings that it will never satisfy: it cannot explain our emotions--why a particular sight or smell causes inspiration, nostalgia, or dread; it cannot explain our longing for the supernatural; it cannot explain our need for significance, nor can science give us significance. To science, leaves fall because they fall, lovely but useless, wasted. And even if scientists manage to isolate the chemicals that produce emotions, their explanation removes the wonder of the event without truly explaining it. For we are human, and we will always feel deep down inside that there must be more to life than merely what we can see and what science can tell us. Whether or not science agrees with us, we know that miracles do occur; and we long for them.
The good news is that there is one person that can explain life in its entirety, infusing it with hope, purpose, and significance. He leaves no room for superstition; he allows science its proper place; yet he satisfies the soul with the miraculous. There is only one person out of the many people in the world--past, present, and future--who can do this: He is not bound by finite limitations. His name is Jesus Christ, the only wise God, the one who created the world and holds it together by the word of his power. Knowing him puts life into perspective and satisfies the soul, freeing us both from superstitious fears and from a sense of insignificance. To him all things are significant. Do you know him?
J. Camburn from United States
Comment 3 of 5, added on October 29th, 2005 at 11:38 PM.
I see this rather more literally than others might; I've actually felt these moments Sylvia was describing. These are the times when life is not lived in shades of gray, when existence is not measured just by the sordid details of human existence. Suddenly, something changes the way you see the most mundane object, and there it is: the possibility of more, that what you believe to be truth is not really all there is.
I stumbled across this poem wholly by accident. It was the first return on my search for "feathers finding portent." I feel that Sylvia, like me, spent her life waiting for meaning, hoping for something more than the "brief respite...from total neutrality." For the "rare, random descent" of an angel, for "some backtalk from the mute sky." Perhaps what doomed Sylvia was her inability to neither fully believe in miracles, nor to disbelieve.
W. Whether from United States
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Comments
The main feeling I got from this poem was the desire Sylvia Plath had for moments of meaning, moments of insight and and inspiration. Sylvia was a woman who lived on writing, a vast majority of this i think, confessional poerty. She was a woman who lived by writing in poetry about her feelings, her experiences, her thoughts and moods. She expressed herself through her poetry. The main idea that was presented to me from this poem was Sylvia lived, stayed, for the moments of inspiration. She could not survive on just the ordinary, just the nice and simple, or as she saw it mundane. She needed moments of understanding, she needed more than normal, more than what she saw as mediocrity almost. She needed inspiration, or she felt that life was barren. This poem was almost a fight with herself, at the beginning she denies the fact that she is waiting for something, "I do not expect a miracle, or an accident." She is trying to kid herself, trying to control her impulses and wants. She says "Let spotted leaves fall as they fall, without ceremony or portent," which is metaphorically her saying "I will just let things be, not try to change or act, or want more." The large BUT comes through however, when she talks of how she desires some backtalk from the mute sky. She can't control herself, even when she tries and wants to. She can't reatin that normalcy, that lack of control and longing. From that point onwards her denail slips away slowly, and she speaks only of the inspiration she is looking for, of "whatever angel may choose to flare. She finally finds that moment she's been waiting for, of understanding, of almost momentary fulfillment. The trouble is, she knows it's just momentary. She knows soon enough she will descend to that low mood, and that she will once again have to wait for another moment of inspiration.
laura from Australia