Kindness - A poem by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath - Kindness

Kindness glides about my house.
Dame Kindness, she is so nice!
The blue and red jewels of her rings smoke
In the windows, the mirrors
Are filling with smiles.

What is so real as the cry of a child?
A rabbit's cry may be wilder
But it has no soul.
Sugar can cure everything, so Kindness says.
Sugar is a necessary fluid,

Its crystals a little poultice.
O kindness, kindness
Sweetly picking up pieces!
My Japanese silks, desperate butterflies,
May be pinned any minute, anesthetized.

And here you come, with a cup of tea
Wreathed in steam.
The blood jet is poetry,
There is no stopping it.
You hand me two children, two roses.

Added: on April 10th, 2007 at 7:41 PM | Viewed: 16556 times | Comments and analysis of Kindness by Sylvia Plath Comments (11)

Kindness - Comments and Information
Poet: Sylvia Plath (Sylvia Plath Art) Poem: Kindness Volume: The Collected Poems Year: Published/Written in 1963 Comment 11 of 11, added on May 19th, 2009 at 3:27 AM. Kindness was written soon before plaths suicide, after her husband Ted Hughs had left her. It is essential to know of her background to grasp the underlying message. Her husband, Ted had written a play where a man cheated on his wife with a mistress, the husband went off to see the mistress and on the way ran over a rabbit, this man then went on to sell the rabbit and buy two roses for his mistress. That is what is meant by the rabbits cry and two roses. It has created a certain level of dramatic irony and allowed plath to express herself and know that Ted will get her message. The reference to a rabbits cry has no soul is in conjunction to Plaths awareness that Ted, her own husband was unfaithful and even though this occured the mistresses relationship had no depth or meaning as they had together. She also states that her own children are the roses, he has left although she ends up with the two roses a token of their love aand a prize in a way this could be constrewed as a triumphant feeling. The kindness that glides through her house refers to the comfort, and tea, sympathy from her friends. However the mirror and window could have meaning that her friends show kindness towards her on the outside however are really feeling pitiful of her. Charlotte A.M. from Australia Comment 10 of 11, added on April 10th, 2007 at 7:59 PM. porque plath tiene mucho "kindness", ella debe chupar mi pinga enorme. Sinick from Canada Comment 9 of 11, added on April 10th, 2007 at 7:41 PM. plath simply pains the readers here with her infallible yet pathetic problems of how she sees no kindness in her life. the poem is essentially very sarcastic and the term kindness is used very loosely. her children here are portrayed as the sufferers and she values even their cries that they are perhaps suffering due to her inadequacy as a mother. it seems that plath did not have the intelligence to realize that "hey at least if i stick around in the world, maybe my kids will have a mother" and for some reason only empathized with their helplessness in her inadequacy of a mother instead of actually doing something about it; moreover, to makes matters worse, she kills herself and now her kids don't even have a mother at all. the only kindness in this poem is that which sylvie receives from her children; it is the only kindness she deserves. the only kindness she gets from the world is that from readers who bask in the sun of satisfaction whose core is the riddance of plath. nigel from Australia More Comments >> Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, Kindness, has received 11 comments. Click here to read them, and perhaps post a comment of your own. Of course you can also always discuss poems by Sylvia Plath with others on the American Poems poetry forum!

Poem Info
Poet: Sylvia Plath Poem: Kindness Volume: The Collected Poems Year: Published/Written in 1963 Last read: Dec 6 2009, 3:20PM Viewed 16556 times. Added on April 10th, 2007 at 7:41 PM.

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